Let's Get Started
After simulating 20 seasons in a Madden franchise mode, I have a league of entirely computer-generated players and teams. I set out to document this alternate world of football. I've been working on this website sporadically as a university side project the last few years - turns out I ended up having a lot to say.
This is like my interactive NFA museum. It's how you can dive into the league that Madden helped me build. In here you can find all the stats, standings and storylines that I found browsing through these rosters. As your tour guide, I'll get you started by explaining the two ways I recommend you navigate through it.
One way is to explore it for yourself. I did the hard part of documenting the stats and recording the game footage of these players. So you can just crunch some numbers and watch some football to figure out what you think about each A.I.-generated team. If you choose this method, you don't have to read anything I write. There's more than enough raw data for you to attach an identity to each of these teams by forming your own educated opinions. Your takes could look way different than what I came up with - there are no right or wrong answers here.
Just go to a team and look at the fast facts at the top of the page, then scroll to any position group of theirs that you want to evaluate. Click the picture that I spotlight underneath the article. There you can see career stats and game footage I compiled on that position group's key player. (If you're curious about where the highlights come from, click here).
Once you come to your conclusion about a team, at the bottom of the page you can make your prediction for the 2041 season (which I call the NFA's 2021 season for legibility purposes). It's already been played - I'll have the full league-wide results from the '21 season written up and posted some time in the future.
The other way I'd recommend exploring the NFA is by reading through the articles like a choose-your-own-adventure book. I've been analyzing this data as a side project for the last four years. By the time I got through it all, I had formed a well-researched take on just about every facet of this computer-generated league. I was making connections between franchises and starting to write like a bona fide opinion piece journalist.
With these articles, I'll walk through each team, basically player-by-player, to give you a snapshot of what the league looks like in the simulation's 21st season. You can use the stats and game tape on the player profiles for extra context.
Donning the cap of an NFA sports writer, I crafted an identity for every team and player through a series of articles from the mainstream media's perspective. Each team starts with an all-encompassing piece on their franchise as a whole and where they stand in the league's hierarchy, followed by an in-depth breakdown of their roster by position group.
I'd recommend you start by reading through the Boston Generals team page. Boston's one of my favorite teams in the league. The Generals won the championship two seasons ago and made the playoffs in each of the last five years straight. Their organization would be seen as the class of the league - if it weren't for their arch-nemesis. Will they clear the hump and capture an elusive second championship this season? Read what I had to say about the team in the preseason, then make your prediction at the bottom of the page.
Getting through the whole museum is obviously a pretty hefty task. I have a few hundred players and a novel's worth of writing here, but it's broken up into brief, bite-sized chunks like you'd see on an average sports site.
Don't think you have to get through everything. Take your time with each team - switch between one method and the other as you read through the articles, watch game footage, and crunch the stats to see the kinds of developing storylines that can come out of a random Madden simulation on a college kid's Playstation.
So without further adieu: