NFL Head Coach starts with the creation of your coach. You begin by choosing from a basic selection of visual options, deciding on your coach’s race, age, weight… its generic, but this clearly isn’t the focus of the game. The real heart of the coach creation mode is deciding your gameplay philosophies. Are you offensive minded or defensive minded? What plays do you call in certain situations… all of these are questions you’ll have to ask as you apply for your first job. Your answers won’t determine if you get a job or not, but go into building your coach’s scheme and reputation.
Once you’ve made your coach and landed a job, it’s on to the main game, which is where everything begins to fall apart. NFL Head Coach is essentially a text-based adventure with long load times between each menu. A majority of your in-game time is spent digging through menus and hitting X, only to then sit through a load time that brings you to yet another menu. Your tenure with a team begins the day after the Super Bowl where you will then play through every day of the off season getting your team ready for next year. And really, these actions aren’t nearly as exciting as they sound – it feels like work.
While NFL Head Coach seems to get things right from a front office standpoint, there are still a few minor problems. Making trades is an awkward guessing game since there’s no way of telling if another team is interested in players you might be looking to dump off. Also, there’s no centralized scouting report (even from individual teams), so you’ll have to scout every player of every team while looking for new guys.
Trades are tricky as well. In the past, Madden has been criticized for having a trade system that let you stack your team with great players for next to nothing. The exact opposite is true for NFL Head Coach. Teams will refuse what look like great deals, especially if the deal would help you out. It is next to impossible to get big name players since teams will either want too much for them or will retain them when they become free agents.
I do have to give the developers props for the NFL Draft though, since it is actually kind of fun, especially when you have a digital Mel Kiper Jr. (and his digital hair) breaking down the picks and draft board.
Eventually all this fiddling leads to actual game days, which are about as exciting as everything that comes before it. Although the game uses the Madden engine, you don’t actually play Madden (so if you’re looking for something to hold you over, this isn’t it). Rather, you spend your time on the sidelines calling plays. As with the rest of the game, all game time decisions involve excessive navigation of menus. This wouldn’t be so bad if the game didn’t continue while you made decisions.
Coaching decisions can also become mini-episodes of Dr. Phil. You will have to motivate players, especially after a bad play or when the team is losing. Doing so is just as much a shot in the dark as making trades. There's no on-screen indicator to let you know where your player stands emotionally. I know there's an element of realism to this, but honestly I'd rather focus on coaching rather than making guesses about Drew Brees emotional well-being.
Online competitive menu navigation is also available.
