Madden NFL 06 is an American football video game which was released on August 8, 2005. It is also a launch game for the Xbox 360. It is the 16th installment of the Madden NFL series by EA Sports, named for noted color commentator John Madden. The product features Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb on the cover. One of the touted additions to the 2006 version of Madden is Superstar mode, which allows the player to create and take control of an NFL player from his rookie year all the way to retirement. An athlete can be created by evaluating pairs of parents - judging, based on their IQs, occupations, and hobbies, whether their child would excel in the NFL - or by importing a player from NCAA Football 06 or NFL Street 2.

Defensive Tips
The obvious way to use the defensive assignments feature would be to have your top cornerback covering your opponent's top receiver. If you just use this feature for that one reason, then you are missing out on its other benefits. Here are a few things you may want to consider adding to your defensive coverage schemes when assigning defensive coverage.

Put your top defensive back on a lower rated receiver. That way you limit your opponent's ability to throw to that side of the field. Now you can roll your pass coverage to the other side of the field and focus on defending your opponent's top receiver.

If your opponent's halfback is the main target in their pass game, you may consider assigning your top linebacker or defensive back on him. That way you can take or limit their primary threat and force him to throw to other receivers on the field.

If you are playing against teams with an elite tight end, such as the Chargers' Antonio Gates, you may want to assign a linebacker or safety who has good coverage skills to him.

Pros and Cons of Using Defensive Assignments

Pros

- Being able to match up specific defenders on specific receivers.
- Takes away your opponent's ability on offense to get unrealistic match-ups.
- Allows more creativity and flexibility for the defense when calling man coverage.

Cons

It shows whether the defense is playing man or zone coverage and also leads to defenders playing out of position. For example, the left outside linebacker and strong safety switch positions. The left outside linebacker now plays the strong safety position and the strong safety now plays the left outside linebacker spot because he is man coverage on the tight end.

If man lock coverage is turned off, the defender assigned to the particular receiver will not follow. Instead, the defender will slide in to cover the slot or tight end. For example, say the offense comes out in Split Backs-3WR and the defense comes out in Dime- Normal Man Under. If man lock is turned off and if the receiver on the far right is sent in motion, the defender covering him will slide in to cover the slot. The defensive back who lined up inside on the left will now slide out to cover the receiver in motion. Often this will create a mismatch that favors the offense.

Offensive Tips:
Establish the run early; this will help set up the play action which can lead to one-on-one coverage for you wide out.

Keep your opponent guessing by running multiple plays out of the same formation. It's hard to guess where the offense is going if it looks the same every time they line up.

Watch the linebackers as soon as you snap the ball and check for the blitz. There is nothing worse than looking down field to throw a pass and you're sacked when your tight end or running back is open in the flats.

Make sure you think about who your ball carrier is when using the Truck Stick. You don't want to try to run over Ray Lewis with Warrick Dunn. Jerome Bettis vs. Allen Rossum is the kind of matchup you are looking for.

When using your QB vision, look off less aware safeties because they will be more easily influenced by which receiver you lock onto.

If someone keeps blitzing up the middle against you and you're having a tough time getting the pass off, use slide protection pinch to clog up the middle with your offensive linemen.

This may be a great game, but it has a couple of hilarious glitches: