Man Card Rules: playing Madden on rookie difficulty

Sometimes I'll bump the difficulty down in preseason games so I can build up my players stats for the real season on Madden, but I'm bumping it down to Pro - not brain-dead Rookie. And once the preseason is over I bump it back up again.

And listen, I'm terrible at Madden. So gawd awful that my 12-year old cousin whoops the crap out of me on the game and does some horrible rendition of the Ocho-Cinco dance. And he doesn't even like sports, I think he's going to become a theatre major in college.

But the Rookie setting?! It's seriously like playing against Art Shell. Your quarterback will have numbers that looked like they came from Arena Football, your running back will set the NFL rushing yards record for a season in just one game. Oh and your defense will sack the quarterback so many times the computer will eventually have to put Jeff George in the game.

And there's always that guy that loves showing off the fact that he can beat the computer 126-0, even though it takes three hours to do it (because the clock doesn't move when you score), and insists on your sitting and watching every single play.

You don't get medals for finishing the beginner rock-climbing course or the Green Circle snowboarding trail. You sure the heck don't get any props for beating the computer on Rookie settings. Turn in the man card.