T he year 2006 was a quite a year for the one and only Madden Tournament. Madden 2007 was poised to be one of the best Madden games of all time. The 07' tourney would be the last on the PS2 system after a 3 year stint of great tournament memories. Although the Madden 07 Tournament was the last regarding the PS2 system, it was also a year of many Madden firsts.
The 3rd annual tourney was known as the tourney of Kick Returns. It seemed as if there was a kick return to the house for TD at least once in every game, and know one really knows why. This was most exemplified in the longest game in Madden History. Mike Morrone played Kevin Rehbein in the longest, as well as highest scoring game in the history of the tournament. If there was one run play the entire game that was it. Every play was deep pass, after deep pass, after deep pass and then after you mix in kick return, after kick return, after kick return; you end up with a game that ends in a 76-70 OT victory for Mike Morrone, eliminating Kevin in the process.
Another big first in Madden History was the Tournament of Seedings. Otherwise known by Dave as "Tournament to get into the Tournament". This was a single elimination mini tourney to determine the seedings for the actual Double elimination tournament, a concept that was frowned upon following the tourney by pretty much all participants. The mini tourney was split into two sections, Billy's house and Jimmy's house. A notable defeat in Jimmy's house would be Jimmy's surprising upset to Nick Porta in the first round of this mini tourney. Dave would dominate everyone in Jimmy's house, beating Gabe in the final. Yet Dave's domination would lead to his very own downfall in the end. Over in Billy's house, Phil came out on top defeating Billy. With very few seconds left in the game Phil had the ball down 3 points on the 10 yard line facing a 4th and goal. Yet instead of taking a trip to OT with an easy FG, Phil went for it all. On a fade pass to Terrell Owens, Phil ending the game on the last play and earned the number one seed opposite Dave in the Big Bracket.
One of the most notable firsts in this year's tournament was the championship participants. After two years of the championship being Jimmy v.s. Billy, it was the first and only year that the championship did not feature Billy. Billy suffered a first round defeat in another memorable Madden Tourney game. Billy, having the 4th overall seed in the Big Bracket, was already looking past his first round opponent Joey Catena, who he had already defeated via mercy rule in the mini tourney earlier in the day. In the first played game in the "Big Bracket" Billy with his New Orleans Saints would take on Joey's Rams along with MVP of the 2007 Tourney, FB Madison Hedgecock . In a game of intense "coaching", it seemed as if the rest of the tournament was playing with the Rams, rather than Joey. No one wanted Billy to win, not one person in the room with the exception of Billy. This was the start of the hate for Billy in regards to any competitive tournament or organization. From this came the "cheating books", the "notebook", etc. This defeat also brought up one of the most important rules in the Madden Tournament; (No Coaching).
While this was going on, Phil was dominating with his Dallas Cowboys. He ran through the bracket, making his tournament win streak to six, advancing to the winner's bracket final. On the other side of the spectrum Jimmy came back to get revenge on Nick Porta in the first round rematch, beating him 24-0 in the first quarter, a mercy rule in it of itself, probably the worst defeat in madden history. He would go on to face Joey Catena in a seemingly very good Madden player in Jimmy. The Cinderella story would come to a pause in the semi final as Jimmy would go on to play Phil in the winners bracket final.
After the first two rounds many faces that were known as winners in past Madden Tourneys looked across at each other in the loser's bracket, all facing elimination. The most renowned loser's bracket game that year was Dave v.s. Billy. The Saints v.s. the Giants. After a much intense game, the two players met in Overtime. Dave would win the toss and receive. After two sacks in a row on the first two offensive plays for Dave, Billy pinned him on a 3rd and 25+ yards on his own 15. This next play would forever be known as the "Madden Miracle". In the most ridiculous play in worldwide Madden video game history, Dave dropped back in an attempt to keep his tourney chances alive. In a total literal sense, with no exaggeration whatsoever, this is how it went down. Feeling the rush, Eli Manning would roll out out to the left, 3 plus Saints defenders were right there, yet somehow Dave juked them out and rolled across the backfield to the right side. While his receivers were all 80 yards down the field Dave had no clue what to do. The play was past the 25 second mark and the Saint defenders had their eyes back on Eli and the ball. After ducking another one defender Eli started running backwards to try and avoid contact, but Billy was literally right on his back taking Eli down, yet somehow Eli pulled off a spin move, and while being hit and spinning backwards Eli launched the ball without moving his arm 80 plus yards down the field, to Plaxico Burress (who by now was being covered by about 6 defensive backs) who would catch a ball tipped by just about every Saint D-back in the area and fall into the end zone, ending the game, and ending Billy's chances of repeating as a Madden Champion.
Dave would go on to beat Joey to narrow down the field to three players. Note* (Joey finished in 4th place that year, the highest he ever has excluding that year was 13th). This would be the last game of a long, long day and the Tourney would have to continue the next afternoon. With the field down to three, Jimmy would defeat Phil in the winner's bracket leaving Jimmy the only unbeaten player in the Big Bracket.
This would lead to Dave v.s. Phil with the winner advancing to the tournament championship. Phil had a major advantage. This advantage was Dave's incredible disadvantage. After winning the portion of the "Tournament to get into the Tournament" Dave would not play again for more than 5 hours. He just sat in one single spot and didn't move for the rest of the day, and this not only angered Dave, it annoyed him deeply, but most importantly it fatigued Dave. Dave had seen so much Madden and heard so much bitching and moaning from Kevin and Gabe that he had pretty much grown to hate the game. Phil saw this is took full advantage of this detail, which worked. Phil-Jimmy II would occur in the Madden 2007 Tournament Final. Yet Phil did not have enough to pull off two wins in a row, in fact, he didn't have enough for even one mere victory over Jimmy.
Jimmy would win his second Madden tournament, his 2nd in 3 years, making him the undeclared Madden Champion, even though Billy would beat Jimmy immediately following the Tourney and then he would go on to annoy Jimmy for months upon months that considering he beat the Madden Champion that he was the true Madden Champion. Yet Jimmy always did and always will know that he won that tournament and will never forget it. Well it wouldn't be that hard to forget it considering he keeps the bracket to this day in his Madden 07 game case stored safely in his basement drawer. So Madden 2007 up to that point was considered probably the best tournament yet, and very soon after would make the jump to the Next-Gen format in Madden 08'.
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