So, You're A Level 18?

Last night I had the great pleasure of playing a scrub with an inflated level 18 record. He was using my favorite team to play against. The scrub-rots. Let's just say I haven't lost to the Patriots in a long long while. So what did this guy do? Here's the gist.

Start of game: He pauses.

Must be calling audibles right, he wouldn't need to cheat while using the Patriots right?

Stallworth now on returns.

Game starts.

His second pause. (Don't know why he paused twice probably to run a cheat of some sort)

I call a timeout.

I stop his return for nominal yardage and settle back in my defense expecting the usual Randy bomb. Here we go. 5 wide, motion motion, motion motion, snap. Bomb. Incomplete. He kept doing this until I made him punt on a 3 and out.

I get the ball and start running my opening drive. Take it all the way down the field and score my TD after a good 3 minute drive; using more than ONE guy on my team.

He gets the ball back. He pauses the game again.

Comes back in 5 wide again, motion motion, motion motion, snap; another incompletion series. He punts again. So It's 7 nothing me going into the 2nd quarter and I'm driving with less than a minute running the clock and out think him and toss it out to my running back who's heading right for the corner of the endzone for 7 points. This is when the game went into stutter stutter mode. I have been playing madden for many years but this line pull beats all the others hands down. I get tackled at the half yard line. I take my 3 points and go into the half 10 nothing. He has 0 yards of offense for the 1st and 2nd quarter. That is something I've never done to someone before. I get the ball back in the 3rd, and now I can't complete a pass due to the lag/linepulling; and of course now he's still bombing away to moss. He completes a few and finally I pick him off.

Fast forward to the 4th quarter. I'm up 13-0 and he still hasn't scored and I've now forced him to use ALL his timeouts. I run the clock down on the 1st down and sit back and wait for what I know is coming next. (Note: if you find yourself in this position against someone with a record like this DO NOT throw the ball unless you really have to. The chances are high that you'll get line lagged and toss an INT.

Quit/End game.

Gee surprise here.

Somehow I was able to get the win due to the score.

Just goes to show you that EA's ratings system is a joke and that guy with the "Great," level is more than likely a line pulling scrub with nothing upstairs.

See you all on the field.