Is anyone surprised they stayed away from Bill Belichick? LOL.

Interesting. This game actually sounds different.

Dear God not again.

I still see head coach on my store's shelves, heavily discounted. I don't really have much faith in the head coach series... But we'll see. Its not like Head coach can get much worse, right?

Oh c'mon. Put Tom Coughlin on the cover.

And in "Tony's Tips", you'll learn that tanking it in Week 17 by barely playing/sitting your starters when you've locked up home-field advantage is the key to postseason success!

Sincerely,

A Browns Fan Who Said "How'd That Taste?" When San Diego Did You Like That In Your Own Place

Dungy is like the posterboy of nice head coach. Really it should've been Belichik, but then he probably wouldn't have given his permission to be used as the cover boy.

Is there going to be a curse associated with this game, too?

Call the fake punt.

@Tull: They wouldn't want Belicheat on the cover. Have you been paying attention to the news lately? It wasn't that Bill wouldn't "give permission."

Does it matter that he was black...seriously is that really news?

Why does the Kotaku write up say its only coming out for the PS3? Fanboyism?

@Shinamano: Actually, yes it is ... it was quite a huge deal when he won, and he spoke on the subject many times. It's news because he's the first. Also, Tony Dungy is one of the nicest guys ever -- truly an amazing coach and human being. Even though he's no longer with the Bucs, he's planted roots in Tampa and has done quite a bit for the community. He's really loved here.

I like Dungy. So 'grats to him for gracing the cover.

I didn't like the Colt's performance this year. :c

Now sports in my state are boring.

Shoulda been you, McCarthy.

Wait a second. There was a previous incarnation of this!?

@jayntampa: Honestly it is stuff like this that propagates racism...he is a person same as everyone else the color of your skin does not mean anything.

Anyone who thinks what Darth Belichik did was something other coaches weren't doing I have some nice property in Chernobyl I want to sell you. His only mistake was ever hiring someone like Mangini on his staff to begin with.

was there an 07 release on this game?

Belichick would have done the cover but he stated that "The picture better come out perfect. If it isnt dont even bother with me."

Belichick isn't in the coaches association and can't be used in video games. He's not in Madden either, I can't remember his name ever being in it. There are/were a couple other coaches like this, Parcells was one of them.

Besides, Bill is a horrible dirty cheater right? /rollseyes

So all that playtime with "Theme Park" is getting me ready for a job cleaning up puke and allowing rides to spin out of control/catch on fire.

Awesome.

In regards to the game though, I sat down with it for a bit and I just don't see the appeal, but I'm also not a fanatical sports / fantasy sports fan, which I'm sure is appealing to that vastly growing market. I still remember doing a Fantasy Baseball league one year and the "draft" took 10 hours. I just don't see the fun in that, but that's me.

OMG KOTAKU HAS GIVEN IN TO THE MAN!!!! ADS!!! ADS EVERYWHERE!!!!!

@Rehabilitator: You obviously were not here when they ran other ads, such as Shadowrun for example.

Sides its not Kotaku, but Gawker media who takes care of what ads run on what sites depending on where the client wants to advertise.

So if you play as Tony Dungy I assume you make it all the way to the playoffs and then choke for four seasons in a row, right?

@Shinamano: It always means somethingw when you are the first of your culture to do something -- to deny that is to deny the work he had to do to achieve it. You're right, race is irrelevant ... but, someone has to be the first to prove to bigots that all people are created equal.

That is why Jackie Robinson is so important.

This franchise is useless, there is no reason for it to exist.

I thought they canned this series!?

@Shinamano: Agreed 100%

Something as minor as skin color is really just irrelevant. It's a shame that our culture puts so much emphasis on it.
The bottom line is that he is a great guy and an awesome coach.

...And on the subject of this game, how is it any different than Madden? (sorry if that's a stupid question)

@hotgarbage: Wiki might be able to explain NFL Head Coach better than we can. Basically you're the coach of a NFL team, thus you do all the monotonous tasks a coach does. Schedule events, go to boring meetings, and etc.

Just too bad a good coach such as him is on the cover of what will be a mediocre game.

OMFG... What's next? "Water Boy 09"? "Cheerleader 09"? "Mascot 09"?

I'd rather have bill on the cover. Then EA can have a "video taping hand signals mode" which i think would really elevate the level of play and realism in the head coach series. I wonder if there is a persuade your players to use steroids option in this year's game?

@Han Daimond: Water sucks.. Water sucks water sucks... and Mascot 09 would have a certain something appeal to the furries I'm sure.

AS for NFL head coach, I fully expect to get this game viva bargin bin, or somewhere cheaper. after paying for the utter shit EA put out in NFL headcoach, I feel much less willing to pay full price. Great idea, shit in practice. Lets hope this game isn't an utter waste of electronics like the last one was.

Oh, and keep an eye out for this guy.. I wanna know if the so called madden curse applies to headcoach.

FUCK EA!

I'm gonna play as the patriots and purposely lose every game.
[www.theonion.com]

Can't wait to not buy this.

There's not a classier coach in pro football.
That being said, I loathe sports games.

@Han Daimond: Cheerleader 09 would probably have an interesting create-a-character mode, but that would be fun for about five minutes.

It wouldn't take much for this game to be better than the first, but it would take a lot for it to be fun.

So how long will it be before guys like Parcells, Belichick, and Dungy are trolling gaming forums with posts like: "I don't need this...I can just go coach a REAL team!"

People bought the original? wow, just, wow!

@jollydwarf: Comment of the century. I lolllllll'ed.

@HurricaneDave: Then don't buy it. And in fact, don't comment in a thread about it. Some of us are hoping for a big improvement over the last.

@ChaosBahamut: Glad you've already played it extensively to know it's mediocre.

@Streeks1984: Useful.

I'm hoping it's as good as it sounds from the early report. I need something to replace Front Office Football.

The first one (didn't they skip last year?), had its heart in the right place. This game should be all the fun of Madden's Franchise mode (personnel management, franchise management, etc), with the actual football gameplay extracted and discarded.

Its definitely a niche market, but I'll give it another shot.

After looking through the IGN writeup and seeing some screens, I am cautiously optimistic that this game might be playable. Unlike its POS predecessor.

@crazyscreenwriter:

Actually, what it means is that you get put on a shitty team that has never been worth a damn then you completely redefine them and create a franchise built on solid defense and achieve greater levels of success than the team had ever dreamed of knowing before you got there.

Then you get fired and the new coach wins a super bowl with your team, but the very next season the whole franchise falls apart in an amazingly hilarious fashion while you go on to lead one of the most successful teams of the decade and get a super bowl ring of your own.

Well that does it with Dungy, he will promptly get injured this year while being poured with Gatorade.

@Lackshmana: You are forgetting about Monte Kiffin and Lovie Smith molding that defense.

@Tull:

Ah, the old 'everyone else is doing it' defense. Tell me, has that, in the history of mankind ever worked?

Dungy is a good choice. It is most likely his last year coaching and he's well respected around the league. I'll probably give this a Gamefly, just for some easy A points.

I'll look past the fact he's a God freak, hates teh homoz for the fact that he's respected (by others who hate teh homoz) and knows what he's doing. Glad to see he did get his ring, even if it was over my Bears.

I love the people who cry "his skin color doesn't matter!" This is still America. It still does.

And the last iteration of Head Coach sucked hard. Now I get to haggle with a third round pick about signing bonus, and he's even SMARTER? Sign me up to not buy this game.

yeah his son goes to my school

@Karlott: Head Coach is likely one of those games that either scream "mediocre" or "must have", depending on your tastes. Me, I don't like micromanaging so I knew that Head Coach wasn't my kind of game. Could I be wrong? Maybe. But I'm not giving EA my money when it comes to NFL games as I still have a bit of a grudge against them.

Case in point: I played ESPN NFL 2K5, it was much better than Madden in my opinion (and I played Madden 02-04 so I know), and then the rest is history.

Who cares? And before I'm flamed let me say that I am a Football fan. Go Jaguars!

@KM91:

People who are more than the average fan care. People who understand the differences between Zone and Man coverage, the differences of 3-4, 4-3, and 3-3-5 defense, spread offense, spread option offense, pro style offense all care.

Obviously, the average fan who doesn't really understand the game won't care. It is for those who are on a higher level than those fans.

When I played the first one, I fell asleep before the pre-season...and I'm a huge football fan!

Am I the only one who thinks that EA is fucking PC gamers like they've done on the NASCAR series and their new boxing game? This must be some really stupid decision making going on at the bean-counter level. "Hmmm...we can save some money if we stop developing titles for the millions of loyal PC gamers"

I seriously hope PC gamers give them a harsh backlash soon. I'm sick of getting excited about games I cant play unless I take out a mortgage for a console....