NFL Head Coach is EA Sports' first attempt at an NFL sports-management simulation. Unlike the Championship Managers of the world, however, Head Coach isn't an entirely text-driven affair; during game time or practices, for example, you'll watch the plays you call on the field unfold using the standard Madden NFL engine. In part one of our Head Coach journal, our fictional coach Vick Dozier landed his dream job with the Chicago Bears and took his team from the lows of firing staff members to the highs of having a pretty decent NFL draft. In part two, coach Dozier takes the team he has assembled through training camp, the preseason, and into the regular season. Give it to us, Dozier!

No, he's not daydreaming, he's thinking of ingenious new offensive plays!

The Dozier Report, Part 2
By Coach Vick Dozier

Before I enlighten you maggots with more of my head-coaching wizardry, I need to let the punk who wrote this introduction know that I'd sooner have my legs run over by an 18-wheeler than put up with another one of his lame-brain essays. I'd gladly lie down in the middle of Route 66 while a massive Mac truck carrying 16 tons of baby wipes repeatedly ground my legs into sawdust than put up with another mealymouthed white-tooth introduction from someone who probably spends the majority of his free time pounding Cheez Whiz out on a lawn chair. You listening to me GamePot or whatever the heck you're called? Get your act together, or I'll use the lot of you as tackling dummies.

Now, let's get to business. You see, unlike most of you ColecoVision freaks, I have a job, and that job is to win football games. You'll recall that in my last report, the New York Giants, in a fit of stupidity that has only been rivaled by the Chargers drafting Ryan Leaf back in 1998, picked Vince Young with their number-one overall pick, despite already possessing a strong starting quarterback in Eli Manning. Frankly, I was shocked that Young was still available at pick number 25 and was quickly adjusting my draft charts accordingly--if Vince was going to fall into my hands, you better believe I was going to take him. Nonetheless, Tom Coughlin and his crew of stooges screwed up those plans by taking Young, and now the Bears were stuck in a rut. My first plan of action was a silent vow to get even with Coughlin by either A) destroying his team on the field of play during our week-10 game or 2) seducing his wife and having his children call me daddy, whichever came first.

My second plan was to quickly react in the draft room. While Mel Kiper and his abnormally large head rattled off meaningless stats about the Vince Young pick, my coaching staff and I had five minutes to adjust our strategy. I checked the available picks, and the one name that stood out to me was Winston Justice. The Bears' offensive line could always use some shoring up, especially since we've got to keep Rex Grossman healthy this year. Kyle Orton did fine for us last year, but I want a quarterback who plays to win, not someone who simply plays to "not lose." For our second pick, I grabbed wide receiver and Olympic skier Jeremy Bloom, a guy I considered a pretty solid gamble at his position. In the later rounds, we picked up another offensive lineman and an outside linebacker, who I hoped would pick up the slack where Hunter Hillenmeyer was concerned.

Coach Dozier's so cool, he doesn't even need to look at the action on the field.

With the NFL Draft out of the way, it was time to start turning this group of football players into a team of Chicago Bears. In our first postdraft coach's meeting, a few of my position coaches had some ideas of who they wanted to get the starting job. Bob Babich, my linebackers coach, chimed in first, saying that he thought Derrick Rodgers deserved to start over Hunter Hillenmeyer, a guy we just signed to a big contract extension. I politely informed Babich that, unless he wanted to start paying Hillenemeyer out of his own pocket while he rode the bench, Hunter would be starting at left outside linebacker. On the other hand, my o-line coach felt that Roberto Garza deserved the start over Terrence Metcalf, and I did, too.

Finally, it was time to hit the field. Normally, I don't like noncontact practices. It's my personal philosophy that a player can only successfully play after sustaining a vicious concussion if he's used to being concussed repeatedly. Are you listening Steve Young? And while I would have preferred full-contact, padless practices, my coaches convinced me to mix in a few noncontact practices as well. In addition to running various plays with the full squad, I focused on our passing game with Grossman and Orton. Pass skeleton drills are a great way to focus on the quarterback/receiver relationship, while also giving some crucial coverage tips to the secondary guys.

Luckily, the Bears have some sharp players in their secondary; I'm thinking particularly of Jerry Azumah, who always seems to be ready to accept any coaching I offered. Take the standard slant route we ran during one practice. After getting beat several times by Grossman and Mark Bradley, I pulled Azumah aside and told him to keep to the inside of the receiver and try to jump the route to pick off the ball. He nodded his head and, when I called the play next, Az pulled down the pick and ran it back for what would have certainly been six in a real game. Now granted, not all players are that coachable. Grossman, for example, doesn't like to be reprimanded; you can just see it in his reaction to you. However, if you focus on the strategic side of things with Rex--like when I told him to release the ball quicker and focus on the middle of the field on slant routes--you'd be surprised how much progress he can make in a practice. Sometimes, you see, you've got to tell these boys what to think.

As the off-season practices progressed, my owner, Mr. Rashaan Adams, let me know that I had to get a number of different positions up to speed before preseason began. Normally, I take being told what to do like a beehive takes a broomstick, but in this case, I was pretty sure that Mr. Adams was right. Taking a look at our progress, I could see that practically everyone but Grossman was where they needed to be, so to get Rex caught up with the rest of the team, I gave him a few more reps in practice. Pretty soon, everyone was happy.

The Chicago Bears' coaching staff waits for the axe to drop...again.

One of the other big things in full-team practices is getting to know your offensive and defensive playbooks. The more you practice a particular play, the better chance your offense or defense has in pulling it off when the game really counts. Focus on a play long enough, and its execution almost becomes automatic, a "money" play, so to speak. This isn't to say that you'll be guaranteed to pull it off when the time is right, but you'll be better off trying it than something entirely new. "Go back to what you know," I always say. Of course, I also think that a pair of broken hand is not a good-enough reason for a wide receiver to go on injured reserve.