Another Harbaugh Is a Reminder That the Madden Coaching Carousel Matters, Too

While we talk about the Coach Carousel a lot in CFB because it’s already a feature there and desperately needs improvements, the John Harbaugh to Giants news is a reminder that coaching hires are an especially big deal throughout college and pro football.

This has become an especially earth shattering head coaching cycle between Tomlin and Harbaugh “parting ways” with their teams, and even rumblings about LaFleur being in danger in Green Bay.

There were rumblings about Harbaugh and Tomlin before those changes happened (especially among their fans), but the odds would have been against both dipping from the AFC North this offseason.

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That said, this was a coaching cycle that seemed very uninteresting when it first began, and now it has the chance to be one of the more defining ones in a long time because you’ll have multiple long-time coaches trying to prove their worth in new spots (assuming Tomlin takes a job).

This brings me back to the idea of the Coach Carousel once again. I talked about the other Harbaugh after he took a job in San Diego, but it was a different world then in 2024. We were awaiting CFB’s return, and coach licensing was in a very different spot.

I won’t repeat everything I said in that article, but I think a lot of my points remain about why adding intrigue and depth to the coaching side of things matters a lot.

Madden has done a better job with making each coach unique, and both games do a better job with licensing, but there’s still a lack of “mess” and intrigue with your staff. It should not be so cut and dry that you stay with your team, and the expectations for your job security do change over time — even if you’re very successful as Harbaugh and Tomlin both show.

I don’t have a lot to say beyond that for the time being, but I think it’s important to remember that in both football games we are now the “coach” character even more than we’re the GM or owner character.

Yes, we have full control over personnel and everything else that an owner or GM would control, but the point remains that if these games are going to lean into us being a “coach” above all else, then it’s important to remember coaches have contracts and drama attached to their roles as well.

It would be negligent to forget that, and it would take away from the realism and fun by not making them deeper characters in our stories.

Everything You May Have Missed This Week

This week was much lighter than last week in terms of news, which is a little surprising considering we’re now fully back in the swing of things after the holidays.

However, following up from what I felt was the most exciting rumor from last week, the release date for Forza Horizon 6 may have been leaked. Release dates this far out are never guaranteed either way, but the leak indicates a May 19 release.

This is important because even if the release date ends up being moved around a bit, we should have a good idea about the “window” the game will be releasing into now.

While many are wondering if a new UFC game is in the cards in the future, UFC 5 got a roster update this week as Charles Johnson is now in the game.

Another patch that released this week was for UFL. I do not know anyone who is still regularly playing this game, and I don’t mean that as shade, I simply say that because it seems like they’re still trying hard to make the game better.

The focus for this patch seems to have been on AI improvements, but I’m no expert at this point on how much help UFL needs on that front.

Sticking with soccer, Liga MX might be returning to EA Sports FC. One of the frustrating things about FC the last couple years for fans is that licensing has felt less expansive.

This makes sense because FC has competition from elsewhere, and Liga MX was only in eFootball the last couple years (albeit fans are more accepting of that sort of exclusivity than the full-on version that the NFL institutes).

But that licensing has lapsed, and so reports are now out that Liga MX will be back with EA soon enough.

Nostalgia has also been a theme this week. There’s been fans on social media remembering the “greatness” of FIFA 17:

I find this love for FIFA 17 ironic because it’s the first year on the Frostbite engine. The game feels very different from other versions of FIFA because of that — change isn’t always good in sports games.

And while FIFA 17 is well remembered to be sure because the graphics took a leap with the new engine, and the Alex Hunter story mode was decent, it would not be smooth sailing ahead for that series once we got to around FIFA 19 or so.

But I find it ironic because while many look back fondly on that first FIFA game on a new engine, Frostbite was absolutely terrible for Madden’s gameplay quality. Madden 18 looked better due to the engine, but the gameplay took steps back, and in some ways still struggles to find some of the good from the pre-Frostbite days.

So this week has just been a good reminder that game engines matter a lot, and two team sports can feel very different in the same engine.

Speaking of nostalgia, OS writer Robert Preston talked about music in sports games this week, and it’s fair to say sports games have had a big impact on my music tastes, which is part of the point Robert makes in that article.

Robert also has a quality article this week on the importance of F1 27. While we’re still not close to that release, F1 27 is going to be a good litmus test for whether a two-year cycle vs. one-year cycle is tenable because F1 26 is not going to be a “full” release.

Finally, we now have the full roster for Mario Tennis Fever (38 playable characters), and multiple versions of Retro Bowl got patches this week as well.

Until next time y’all. And, as always, thanks for reading.

-Chase