What is your favorite football video game of all time?

We’re in the middle of a fun theme week here at SB Nation as this one is all about Video Games!

The video game industry generated $35.4 billion in revenue in 2019, and one of the most profitable sections of that market centers around sports, or in particular, football. EA Sports’ Madden Franchise is one of the most popular video games of all time, but there have been several other football games through the years that gamers have enjoyed.

We asked our staffers to give us their favorite football video game of all time in the first question of this weeks’ round table.

This one was an easy choice for me, Tecmo Super Bowl on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Don’t get me wrong, I loved the original on the NES, and all the sequels, but it was the SNES version that me and my friends spent countless hours playing. My favorite team to play with was the Houston Oilers, but my favorite player to play was QB Eagles (Randall Cunningham). The Chicago Bears were fun too, but my friends and I would randomly pick teams each season we played to keep it fair.

Now let’s check in on the rest of our team and their favorite football video game of all time.

“NFL 2K5... I’ll be that guy. Presentation was spot on, gameplay felt smoother, it felt like the bar was raised, and then, yeah.” ~ Steven Schweickert

“Madden ‘08... This was when Devin Hester had his “100” speed rating and was a busted weapon to use in kick returns, WR reverse plays, and I’d even line him up as a tailback. Oh, and Brian Urlacher was virtually on God Mode whenever I’d play defense.” ~ Erik Christopher Duerrwaechter

“My favorite NFL game is Madden 08 - I’ll cheat here and deflect my favorite overall football game to a later question. Its predecessor was a fun play, but EA Sports built upon it to create a truly fantastic game. The gameplay itself was smoother and more refined, and I liked the weapons features, which was basically an early version of the badges that NBA 2K currently uses. Franchise mode was a fun feature that’s more in-depth than what Madden has today, and superstar mode was also elaborate and is enjoyable to this day. It also introduced now-extinct creation modes like making your own team and stadium to that next generation of consoles - can you imagine how much fun creating your own uniforms and stadiums would be with modern graphics? Bonus points for the soundtrack being one of the best Madden soundtracks of all-time.” ~ Jacob Infante

“Madden 25 was one of the last games to have a good Franchise mode. I have fond memories of choosing the Bears, going through a fantasy draft, choosing my whole team of players under 25 years old and then giving them all Superstar development ratings at the end of the first season. After that, they sneeze and gain +1 Speed.” ~ Jack Salo

“Blitz: The League 2... I’ve heard that BTL1 is the better game of the two, but I could never find a working copy of it once I heard about the series back in my freshman year of college. While a bit gruesome at times, I loved the way that Midway expanded on the Blitz title through the “The League” series and brought it out of the N64 days. Old-school Blitz is still awesome, but I had too many great memories with BTL2 to not give it my top spot.” ~ Robert Schmitz

“NFL Street always took football over the top, and more importantly, slashed out all of the serious elements traditionalists love about it. There was nothing more empowering than turning on game-breaker and having guys bounce off of you on runs with no effort. This was of course after finishing a daring wall run or somersault not possible to mortal humans. More surreal, better game.” ~ Robert Zeglinski

“Bill Walsh College Football... Yes, I’m that old. This was the first version of EA Sports college football games and I played it constantly. I wish they would have had a season mode that kept statistics, but playing with the classic teams was so awesome at the time. When playing with friends, Auburn ’83 was the illegal team, because just like in Tecmo Bowl, Bo Jackson was unstoppable.” ~ Bill Zimmerman

“I don’t do video games, at all... so... my favorite table-top football game of all time is Blood Bowl by Games Workshop.” ~ Ken Mitchell

Now it’s your turn, what was your favorite football video game of all time?