Playing Madden Raises Football IQ
by 
A study by the University of Oregon’s Warsaw Sports Marketing Center had the results released today that show NFL fans who play Madden are more knowledgeable about the sport than those who don’t play the game. Apparently it is not an insignificant difference either. The football IQ of Madden players came out 60% higher than non-Madden players.
The survey also shows a correlation between the total hours of playing Madden NFL per week and football IQ, as scores increased the more a gamer played Madden NFL. A Madden NFL gamer who rarely plays the game attained an average score of 20.4, less than one hour a week scored 20.9, one to five hours per week scored 21.4, six to ten hours per week scored 22.4 and a Madden NFL gamer who plays more than ten hours a week earned an average score of 22.7.
Two specific examples of questions were mentioned. What does it mean to bring an 8th man into the box? Madden players got it right 83% of the time and non-Madden players 47%. What is the purpose of sending a man in motion before an offensive play? Madden players with 59% and non-Madden 19%.
Of course some of this should be attributed to many who play Madden being dedicated, more likely to be hardcore NFL fans to begin with. But there is certainly an element of sports games that teach these days. We’ve seen that in what I would think an even larger extent from the NHL and FIFA titles as they have begun to attract consumers who don’t even necessarily follow the sports and their Be a Pro modes offer another way to learn the rules and nuances.
January 21, 2009 at 3:39 pm
If Ryan Leaf played Madden, he would've won 3 Super Bowls by now.
January 22, 2009 at 3:48 pm
when is the next update coming?
January 21, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Man this is what Sports Marketing people study?!?!? No wonder all the athletes major in that crap. Anyone could have told you this information without spending time or resources on such a lame study. As a matter of fact I have recognized more than 2-3 football players that I never would have known had it not been for Madden. Jerry Deloach being one of them.
p.s. Pasta give it up, Flacco, was 15 TD -14 INT on the season and less than 50% completion in the playoffs, he aint no 85. All he did was not throw picks that would cost his team the game. HE just threw them when they were ahead or his defense could bail him out.
January 21, 2009 at 10:27 pm
Flacco should be an 84. in his last 14 games he has 14 td and 7 int. Not too bad considering the last two int's came in the playoffs against the best defense in football. Also, he may not be as good as Ryan, but he made it further in the playoffs. an 84 rating would make him just better than brady quinn which is probably accurate. Quinn's rating are only based off of one game in which he excelled against the worst pass defense in the league and so he should not be rated higher than flacco
January 21, 2009 at 3:48 pm
Also Big Ben deserves to be on the cover as much as anyone else.
January 21, 2009 at 10:43 pm
he was sacked like 9 million times so no…
January 22, 2009 at 5:07 pm
Hahaha… This is the dumbest comment ever. I hope you are joking.
Silly stealer fan.
January 22, 2009 at 6:52 pm
Who cares who is on the cover? If the game is crap it doesn't really matter.
January 21, 2009 at 3:52 pm
I want to take this test. Those questions were so easy! I'd be ashamed if someone didn't know what bringing an 8th man in the box meant!
January 21, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Yeah and I dont seem to understand it. In Madden HOW do you put an 8th man in the box in Madden, without playing as the safety of course.
January 21, 2009 at 9:56 pm
You do it, by playing the 46 defense, or simply playing a 4-3 D differently, for example, playing the 'over' and 'under' formations of the 4-3
January 21, 2009 at 11:47 pm
for the 360 you press "Y" then press left if im not mistaken
January 22, 2009 at 6:53 pm
You can show blitz in the pre-play alignment for your DBs….
January 21, 2009 at 4:31 pm
I think it was an interesting (if somewhat pointless) study. And I can certainly personally agree with it. For some reason as a kid I never got into football (Looks out window at giant "G" on back of Lambeau Field scoreboard and gets even more confused) until I started playing Madden games. I first got interested in them around 96 or so, but didn't really care about them too much until they started getting really good (PS2 era and on)
When I first played them, I was confused as all hell, about the only thing I knew was that on defense I had to wait until the ball was snapped before I could move, and even then, I would take whatever player I had control of and blitz the QB. I was royally confused as to why I lost the ball every 4 downs, and knew nothing of strategy or personnel packages. I became a football fan through Madden (Which I'll admit is sad when you live 4 blocks from Lambeau Field and have a cousin and godmother with season tickets)
Pasta mentioned more current examples of NHL, and I totally agree on that. I've video taped the local USHL team for about 7 years now, and it wasn't until Be A Pro mode that I knew what a good majority of the stats actually meant.
You guys that are knocking this study probably grew up watching football, around other people who also watch football.
Sorry for the wall of text in the comment.
January 22, 2009 at 6:55 pm
I agree that people who play Madden obtain in-depth knowledge of defenses, alignments, etc. Watching Madden Nation (yes, it is a train wreck) you can't tell me that any of those guys actually played any form of organized football yet they understand zones, man-to-man and how to attack these defenses.
Having played football at the college level and Madden since its inception on the Genesis, I agree that people interested in the sport will gain more knowledge of the nuances and strategies involved.
January 21, 2009 at 7:57 pm
Maybe the people playing a lot of Madden are the people that already understand the game.
January 21, 2009 at 8:48 pm
Football IQ will only grow when a person is willing to learn all the nuances on their own…..if you didn't understood something, chances are……you're going to research it…….via internet or library or whomever could provide. I personally learn about American football via reading books that informed me about the fundamental aspects of the sport and just watching it on TV for many years. i personally don't believe that madden has taught much about how the game would educate newcomers to the sport. if anything they might have shown how to play the game itself…..ala madden last gen where they had tutorials of the new features they had. i have witness many people around me who don't have a clue on how football is played and its a shame that such a mainstream game like madden can't provide a feature that would allow newbies to know the sport better. Perhaps that should be a plan for madden 2011……who knows if they'll ever do it at all.
January 21, 2009 at 11:41 pm
I totally agree with you that most people do not understand the nuances of football. I can bet you that most people here, on madden and the Sports Center watchers do not know what a split end or a flanker is or why the flanker lines off of the line of scrimmage. I bet a lot of people do not know about the gaps for defensive linemen and the gap # for offensive players. If you understand football then you know it's not just throw the ball up or run to daylight it's more intricate than that. I can break down the film for yall of course to show you how a play is run and how it was suppose to run. As always if any of yall need help with reading football plays you know how to find me.
January 21, 2009 at 9:37 pm
Well… i remember when Amobi Okoye was coming out of college a couple years ago, they had a story on espn. he moved to america from nigeria and was 12. since he was so smart they placed him in 9th grade. to make a long story short his idea of football was really fútbol. so the high school football coach convinced him to try football a try by PLAYING MADDEN! so an nfl star learned the rules solely on playing madden
January 21, 2009 at 9:43 pm
lol ya i remember that story
January 22, 2009 at 1:11 am
Yeah his play on the field is like a Madden DE player too. Always going for the sack. 300 pounds and couldn't sniff a run if all the WR are removed form the offense replaced with TE's and all of the offensive lineman where all twitching his way. He has terrible footwork and doesn't play with enough leverage practically eliminating his power. He has the tools to be great DE he's quick fast has good strength (just a leverage issue). He just needs a little more grooming. He could be one of those career projects like a Chester McGlockton.
January 22, 2009 at 7:07 am
i thought okoye was a DT. and to be honest i dont kno what a split end is can u tell me?
January 21, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Is this April Fools?
January 21, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Thats a true study. Blitzes, Run blitzes…'Engage Eight', one thing I didnt know about, Zero coverages, all that stuff……Defensively, I learned a lot from Madden.
January 21, 2009 at 9:55 pm
No doubt, Madden helped me with my defense. I know what coverages to run and what defenses to run and certain stuff in specific situations.
January 21, 2009 at 10:00 pm
I didnt know anything about football, as recently as 2003, I basically learned the shit by TV
January 21, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Helped me out a lot being from the UK and not growing up around football. The only thing that taught me more about the game than madden was the NFL Films productions.
January 21, 2009 at 11:15 pm
wow… research that proved something we already knew. you can say this for all sports titles, and even other games based on realism. I bet alot of people that play COD can point out a p90 if they saw one, if youre exposed to information in a game its bound to sink in eventually. the research would have been more creditble if it just tackled the link between gaming and knowledge obtained through it.
January 21, 2009 at 11:22 pm
Maddens a bad example too because you can literally run the same 2 plays throughout the whole game and win.
January 21, 2009 at 11:38 pm
well if someone does that then the person they are playing against is running similar plays as well.
if you play against someone with a more complex offense youll lose every time if you do that
January 21, 2009 at 11:34 pm
Yeah,it takes alot of football IQ to learn how to rocket catch,glitch,run around with the QB and throw perfect off the back foot passes,and run the same money play over and over…..yeah Madden helps alot….
January 21, 2009 at 11:49 pm
hater
January 22, 2009 at 1:00 am
LMAO you do have a point. Madden a can be extremely fantasy land sometimes. I particularly like the hike the ball take off 10 yards back and throw a perfect pass to a WR 50 yards down the field without looking. Now that crap shouldn't be in the game and I'll be honest I do it all the time that's why I win all of my games. but can you imagine a QB really doing that in a game he would get benched quick after he throws an interception and gets his head torn off by a defensive lineman. I think the way to correct this is to BRING BACK THE QB VISION! That was one of the best additions in my view and totally prevented someone from doing this mad scramble. I serious about this too, I can play with any QB in the game and play like Joe Montana. Doesn't matter if he's 2nd or 3rd string. QB VISION would prevent this. There are a lot of little bugs with Madden but all it needs is fine tuning. It doesn't need a complete overhaul like some of yall are suggesting.
January 22, 2009 at 7:21 am
i hated the qb vision i could never use it. i think they should just make the throws more errant when ppl do that gay stuff.(similiar to when u throw on the run) and a big help would be the pressure from the d-line. they made it better this year but its not good enough. if a team has an elite pass rushin line they should get there way faster than a team that doesnt. there is no way that the colts d-line gets to the qb with the same frequency of thechiefs unless u manually controll it. there is just one team that gets realistic pressure from the d-line alone and that is the vikings. i hope the do waaaay better for 2010
January 23, 2009 at 5:45 pm
I loved that QB vision. It made playing defense more realistic, being able to read the quarterbacks eyes and all. they need to bring it back cuz now it is too easier to pass it to the open receiver. there are to many games where i go for like 23-25 or something ridiculus like that.
January 23, 2009 at 10:43 pm
The people have spoken it's time to reintegrate QB Vision in next year's Madden. I have beaten other players badly with the 3rd string QB throwing daggers with pressure on him. It's kind of ridiculous when you think about it. How the heck can a 3rd string QB come into a game throw daggers under pressure off his back foot with pinpoint accuracy LOL. Here is an idea they should limit the playbook when your backup comes in and reduce his accuracy a little bit until he gets comfortable (if he gets comfortable) in the game.
January 26, 2009 at 11:04 am
maybe yall r right tho because when i had to use that it made me learn the real art of throwing. and i just played a guy who had the bear and he put in rex and wen 20 of 27 for 286 and 2 tds. i was so pissed cause he was droppin back like 20 – 25 yards. so yea ea qb vision should get back on madden. and when i had to use it, it did force me to play more realistically. EA sports this might be the only time that im goin to agree w u
January 22, 2009 at 3:07 am
TO THE CREATORS OF EA MADDEN 2009.BRING DOWN TEDD GINN JR NOOOOOOWWWWWWWWW.HES TOO OVERATED TO BE BREAKING 30 TACKLES IN ONE GAME.AND LITERALLY HE JUST BROKE AROUND 30 TACKLES.I COUNTED AND ITS RIDICULOUS AND SHOULD NOT BE ALOUD TO CONTINUE.IF THERE IS ANYTHING YOU SHOULD FIX THAT WOULD BE IT CUZ MAYBE BRIAN WESTBROOK CAN DO IT AND MAYBE JUST MAYBE JONES-DREW CAN BUT WHEN TEDD GINN JR. BREAKS THAT MANY TACKLES ON ONE PLAY USED THROUGHOUT THE WHOLE GAME AND NO ONE CAN TACKLE HIM IS RIDICULOUS.ALSO I KNOW THERE IS MOMENTUM AND WHEN ONE TEAM IS DOING GOOD THE OTHER TEAM SHOULDNT GET INJURIES OUT OF NOWHERE LIKE MY BEST WR IS OUT FOR THE GAME AND I LOSE MY STARTING RUNNING BACK FOR 3 QUARTERS WHEN THERE IS ONLY 2 QUARTERS TO PLAY.I AM NOT THE BEST PLAYER OUT THERE BUT I GUARUNTEE THAT PEOPLE THAT ARE VERY GOOD GET SCREWED OVER BY NEW GAMERS CUZ THE NEW GAMERS ARE JUST CHILDISH AND USE A CHEAP WAY TO PLAY WHEN ITS JUST NOT REAL.YES GINN DID GOOD THIS YEAR BUT HE DOESNT BREAK THAT MANY TACKLES.I MEAN DID ANYONE SEE HIM GET JACKED UP ON TV WHEN PENNINGTON THREW THAT PICK AND ED REED BROUGHT IT BACK.FUCK YALL DOLPHINS FANS!!!! DIRTY BIRDS 4 LIFE!!!!
January 22, 2009 at 7:25 am
ur right man i hate when i use westbrook marginally the whole game but the minute i need him to kill the clock…..whooop hes out for the game and buckhalter comes in and fumbles(wich he never does in real life) i was so pissed. but he gets injured nearly every game
January 23, 2009 at 1:42 am
i know its pathetic how this game works now.thats why im not playing the eagles or dolphins or jaguars anymore cuz of those cheap ways people use them.i mean westbrook i can see doing that but if a person uses them like this one guy used them like every play and my defense could not pick it up and realize that hes doing the same play then this game isnt that smart at all.i mean a WR screen almost every play and i tried man coverage and up tight with CB and LBs and his guys just kept blocking and it was just stupid cuz that would not work in real life and the way he just used tedd ginn jr was stupid.he did that shit where you use a player who has amazing agility and zig zags like friggin pacman "the video game".its just fucked up
January 23, 2009 at 10:36 pm
I like the one where you trying to go up by 2 scores and your ball carrier decides to fumble the ball that gets returned for a TD.
January 26, 2009 at 11:06 am
OMG ur so right lol madden team sucks
January 22, 2009 at 4:36 am
This is an example of the effect causing the cause. People that watch a lot of football are more likely to play Madden than those that dont watch football. People that watch a lot of football and play Madden probably know more about football than those that dont watch and/or play. This is like saying that if you are in the NBA then you have a higher likelihood of being a better than average basketball player. Classic example of effect before cause.
January 22, 2009 at 6:18 am
I've often thought about this. The more realistic the game gets, the more football-wise the gamers will be. I think there was a Pastapadre article recently that focused on NBA teams using NBA Live to strategize. There will be a time very soon when computer generated scenarios (probably based upon the Madden engine) become very useful tools for NFL coaches, much like flight simulators are invaluable to pilots.
January 22, 2009 at 5:23 pm
Madden sucks since 06 on the 360 this subject is stupid
January 28, 2009 at 1:01 pm
this is kinda off topic but pasta if u talk to the EA guys can u tell them to make dawkins the hardest hitting safety plz