There a few things that are starting to bleed from the madden into the real life game. Time management is one of them. I can't remember who it was but a few years ago a player was running for the ends zone and had a huge lead on the defense, 1 yard from the end zone he started running sideways draining as much clock as possible, assuring no come back from the opposite team.
I saw I believe Leon Washington for the Jaguars pull a similar stunt once, the D seemed to be giving him a free TD at the end of the game but he preferred to just take a knee right before the end zone. With the new Canadian Football rule requiring contact to end the play the D lost a few seconds not reacting fast enough (first year it was implemented I believe) thinking he was down.
The game is also teaching much better strategy to players, getting them to understand more than their position.
It was Brian Westbrook for the Eagles on Dec 1, 2007. He actually just dropped at the 1 because the Cowboys had no timeouts left and the game was effectively over with a 1st down. I believe in the post game interview he acknowledged that he did it because that's how he wastes the opponents time in Madden games.
Maurice Jones-Drew did the same thing in 2009 against the Jets.
Oh yeah, the Maddenization of the modern football game is everywhere. I especially love when on (I think ESPN Sunday Morning Countdown) they use Madden players to illustrate the play but they are scaled to real proportions. The first time I saw that I giggled like a school girl. I started playing Madden in 92 after years of Tecmo Bowl and I never thought I would see it blow up as big as it is now.
Any football player who was in college after 95 has been exposed to Madden in a big way. So even though I am surprised how big it has gotten when it comes to integration in the NFL, I really shouldn't be.
I saw I believe Leon Washington for the Jaguars pull a similar stunt once, the D seemed to be giving him a free TD at the end of the game but he preferred to just take a knee right before the end zone. With the new Canadian Football rule requiring contact to end the play the D lost a few seconds not reacting fast enough (first year it was implemented I believe) thinking he was down.
The game is also teaching much better strategy to players, getting them to understand more than their position.