Esports have now been widely accepted as the natural evolution of gaming and sports. It’s an intersection of traditional single-player or even MMO gaming and the competitiveness of team-based sports or solo sports. Today, it’s easy to find a competitive game or tournament for every major game franchise—And American football is no exception.
NFL is the biggest football tournament and as such, it only makes sense that the franchise dips its toes into the realm of esports to excite players, sure, but also to make more money. In this guide, we’re going to look at the current landscape of NFL esports and how you can participate to have fun and compete seriously!
A Quick Guide to Esports
Esports have quickly taken the world by storm. It wouldn’t be an overstatement to say that they have come up as the clear successor to traditional gaming. Though many gamers still prefer the offline experience of going through a narrative or solving challenges—The fraction of gamers actively playing competitive games has increased gradually.
Today, most AAA games, big game studios, and even small developers try to incorporate multiplayer or competitive aspects. Whether it’s Amazon’s New World that offers a fresh mix of an open-world RPG’s versatility and an MMO’s PvP mechanics or multiplayer-only games like Dota 2, League of Legends, PUBG, and so on, esports have become quite big today.
Even game franchises that used to rely on story-based narratives are incorporating elements of online gameplay like GTA, Call of Duty, and Battlefield.
So, how does NFL factor into all this? Well, the official NFL games as well as a bunch of third-party football games have embraced competitive online play really well. This includes games like Sega and ESPN’s NFL 2K3 and EA Sports’ Madden series.
Making a Team
Making a team is the most basic component and a fundamental part of any NFL esports game. This is because the majority of gameplay in NFL esports revolves around choosing players to make your own team.
Most notably, you’re not limited to the players’ actual team or current team in real life. You can make a dream team with the best players to balance out the stats, for example. In a way, it’s quite like making a fantasy team—Just that you can test your team in interesting simulations against other players.
So, how do you go about making the perfect team? Well, you can find a bunch of gaming guides on NFL esports. We also recommend you check out regular streamers and follow their play style.
It won’t take long before you too can make a formidable team and win more often. Also, you should have a knack for analytics and stats. This means that you should be on top of news about different teams and players.
A well-rounded team often leads to better success in NFL esports, naturally. For example, let’s assume you were limiting your selection to the best teams in the NFL. How will you go about it?
First of all, you’ll check the current standing and records of the different teams and players. This is going to give you plenty of information and valuable insights into how these teams work or how much value the players add to the game individually.
It’s not rare to check official team pages or news websites. Sometimes, it’s also important to analyze the future of the teams. This basically means understanding who’s more likely to win—Which you can do easily without watching every match if you just follow online sports betting.
These platforms do the research for you. The oddsmakers, as they are called, often give odds in positive (for favorites) and negatives (for underdogs) which you can directly take into consideration to make a nice team.
Let’s say we’re building a fresh team. If you check the latest projections for NFL odds, you’ll find that the Philadelphia Eagles have odds of -290 against the New York Giants (+240), and odds of -135 against the San Francisco 49ers (+115).
Long story short, what this tells you is that the Eagles are a strong team in the current season. This will give you a good starting place to find players to add to your roster.
How to Get Started
Well, first of all, we recommend choosing a game. The most well-known NFL esports game is (excluding the terrible ones like Maximum Football 2020!) Madden NFL 23. The league has also teamed up with a company called Enthusiast Gaming to launch a brand-new series called “Tuesday Night Gaming.”
This series will feature prominent football players playing games like Madden NFL 23, Rocket League, and Fortnite.
EA’s Madden is undoubtedly the best way to get started. In fact, as per the latest news, the league has renewed a multi-year deal that will keep the franchise going for the foreseeable future.
Once you have installed the game, it’s time to watch some tutorials, make your team, and just practice! You’ll learn with experimentation and failures if you’re totally new, so don’t worry too much about losses. An important part of esports is losing and learning from your mistakes, constantly.
Wrapping Up
So, with that, you’re ready to join the NFL esports fun! Whether you’re a big fan of football matches or not, you’re bound to fall in love with the action in the games and the excitement of fine-tuning your own team.
The latest installment of the Madden franchise, Madden NFL 24, is full of realism, control, and exciting features. We covered it a while ago and mentioned everything that a player should know—so, get started there!
