Each team has its own forum on which human players can meet and joke around. Once you're on a player-owned team, the forums play a more interesting part, because the owner, who determines who starts and the team's overall strategy, can listen to suggestions on the team or settle arguments between players. However, on computer-owned newbie teams, the forums are there mostly to make friends. I saw it as a good chance to roleplay.
I have an admittedly strange view on roleplaying, and the role I chose to take on in GLB was no different. YA Spittle would play the role every coach hates and every member of the media dreams of interviewing: the clubhouse cancer.
I drew inspiration from Rickey Henderson, Reggie Jackson and Gary Sheffield, all outspoken baseball players with a knack of overestimating their role on the team and speaking in the third person. And so I decided to introduce myself to my new teammates with the following memo, entitled "YA Spittle does NOT play special teams":
YA Spittle has a career to think about and will not be risking injury at the beginning of his promising career by setting blocks for sissy cornerbacks afraid of getting bowled over by some fat, third-string lineman on the return.
See you in the history books!
Even though it caught the other players unaware, they originally came around to YA's way of thinking, and before I knew it the San Francisco Mustangs had someone to hate.
I'd like to think it galvanized the team a bit, even if the games occur without any player's input. Each play is basically random, though some teams opt for different offensive and defensive styles, and players can only view the games after their outcomes have already been tabulated. Truly, most of Goal Line Blitz occurs between games, when you can learn from your player's performance to make him better in the future. But still, as soon as YA Spittle made it onto the team, they went on a three-game winning streak.
But no one appreciated YA Spittle's contribution. Ten or so posts into my introduction thread, I ended up having to defend not just YA Spittle's prodigious football abilities, but his very manhood:
These terrible rumors follow YA Spittle wherever he goes, and it's always up to him to clarify. To drop some knowledge on his teammates. You see, YA Spittle was romantically involved with one of the girls that played football at that junior college while he played for a D-1 school in the area. The only "tackling drills" YA Spittle did with this girl were strictly off the practice regimen, if you catch YA Spittle's drift.
Unfortunately, like so many young romances, this one ended ugly, and since then, this harlot has been smearing YA Spittle whenever she can, telling stories about his inability to score the minimum on the SAT or some catastrophic testicular accident. But YA Spittle doesn't let it get him down. He proves his manhood and worth ON THE FIELD. Already management seems appreciative of his promise. Each game he's been given the ball in more key situations and has delivered time and time again. It won't be long before YA Spittle runs his way into the record books. His back will be to you, just so you remember what it's like to get dusted by the best fullback y'all ever played with.
At the time of this writing, my teammates have taken to calling him YAK Spittle. But he's also averaging 3.5 yards per carry and breaks tackles like Brandon Jacobs.
Goal Line Blitz is still in beta, but anyone can play. It's currently in its second 40-day "season," and it's grown so popular the developers had to curtail new player-owned teams to slow growth. YA Spittle is now San Francisco's leading third down man and hasn't lost yards yet. While it's a far cry from Madden on the PC, Goal Line Blitz definitely satisfies the stat head's urge to work a page full of numbers into something tangible. And the best part is there's other people there who love that aspect of the game, too.
Joe Blancato is an Associate Editor for The Escapist. He plays a pretty mean strong safety.
