Durant has ‘some game’ in eSports
Lions’ receiver proud to claim title of CFL’s Madden King
I knew I was getting good because at one point I beat two other people who were in the Madden Bowl.” Lemar Durant
Here’s one for you: If it hadn’t been for video games, there’s a good chance Lemar Durant wouldn’t be playing professional football right now.
While the B.C. Lions receiver did catch the pigskin bug after going full Tecmo Bowl Bo Jackson in his first community football play as a seven-year-old, the roots were laid a couple years earlier than that, in pixelated form. Thanks, Madden NFL. “I think it was Madden ‘93 on Sega. I would play that game non-stop,” said Durant. “It’s why I started liking football, really.”
Fast-forward nearly 30 years, and the football game has gone through more than 20 versions. It’s simply called “Madden” by most, though there’s an entire generation of players who have no idea who its namesake, John Madden, actually is.
It is also now included in the fraternity of eSports — the world of professional gaming. Ironically, while eSports players are considered a niche sports market, Madden is an equally small stakeholder in the eSports world.
The 2019 Madden Bowl featured around 97,000 spectators, a new high for the tournament, but that total was easily dwarfed by the 100 million who tuned in to watch the 2019 League of Legends Championship. Around 10 million people played Madden worldwide last year; Fortnite, another popular game, had around 350 million.
It’s reflected in the prize money as well. Raidel (Joke) Brito, who won this year’s Madden Bowl, took home US$65,000 in prize money although he also received the prized 12-pound, gold-plated title belt studded 700
Swarovski rhinestones to go with it.
The winners of the teamplayed Overwatch League earned $500,000 for their championship victory.
While Madden might have a much smaller gaming pool than many of the other big video game hitters, it’s still considered a remarkable feat to make it into the Top 100 of global player rankings, something Durant says he’s done several times in the past few years.
Playing in the Madden Ultimate Team — which allows players to create and build their own rosters — he reached as high as 19th in 2018. It’s given the 27-year-old Coquitlam native and SFU grad bragging rights, which he exerts quite frequently with his current and former teammates.
“In video games, he’s always talking like, ‘Oh, I’m the best on the team. I’m the best in the CFL.’ He always talks about how high he was ranked,” laughed Stampeders’ receiver Eric Rogers, who played with Durant in Calgary.
“Lemar has some game. He’s very good,” said B.C. Lions wideout Shaq Johnson.
“This is the thing with Durant. The way he talks, you don’t want to believe him (about his ranking). He talks so soft and quiet, you don’t think it’s believable. I didn’t believe it, and sure enough …
I’ve learned.”
Durant runs under a gamer handle — which won’t be repeated here, to spare his anonymity and ability to trash talk freely online — and has taken down some of the top players in the world, including six-time Madden champ Drini Gjoka. He was invited to participate in a qualifying tournament for the Madden Bowl, but real life — as in, a real football game — got in the way and he didn’t get a chance to play in it.
“No one in person that I’ve played has even been comparable. It’s just those few people online that are a problem,” Durant said, adding he’d briefly flirted with the idea of a pro career, something he might temporarily reconsider if the CFL season gets cancelled because of the COVID19 outbreak.
“I knew I was getting good because at one point I beat two other people who were in the Madden Bowl. (But) once you’re at that high level, it can be frustrating. I’d need to be playing like all day every day. But if I catch them slipping, I can beat some of those top guys.”
Madden is hugely popular among pro football players, with three out of four guys in the locker-room probably picking up the sticks. Already a massively competitive body of personalities, football players can take their consoles on road trips for entertainment, and its accurate depiction of play calling and audibles can help hone their strategic awareness.
Johnson started playing the game while at Notre Dame high school in Brampton, Ont., and didn’t realize how helpful it was until he started watching film as a member of the McGill Redmen in university.
“So for those times I was playing Madden, I was really learning and understanding ‘OK, this is how this works, this is how that works,’” he said. “So now that as the years have gone on, I’ve gone to college, gone through better coaching and everything like that, and the knowledge has just been enhanced.
“I’m just thinking about (plays) before they even happen now. That’s what I like about Madden.”
But as realistic as it is, it can trend to the absurd, with “glitch” plays allowing players the ability to game the system. Brito, for example, took this year’s championship without throwing a single pass and using Washington Redskins punter Tress Way as his quarterback.
While the glitches are exploited by the top players, they also infuriate those who haven’t spent endless hours experimenting in the game to identify them. Rogers and Johnson both hurled good-natured accusations of cheating at Durant.
“He’s one of those guys that finds the glitches in the game. They run one defence, and they have one, two, three offensive plays and they just make these adjustments,” Rogers said in mock exasperation.
“He literally picks one defence. And it’s like muscle memory for him. He does it all quick, and he puts everyone up on the line, moves this guy over this guy, brings another guy up, and by the time you hike the ball, he’s bringing in more people than you can block.
“If this was more of a straight up game … he wouldn’t have the upper hand on me, for sure. I run a lot of different plays, a lot of different scenarios, and he just does one thing. If he has to resort to that, it tells me something about my game.”
“What (Durant) doesn’t remember though, is that I was playing him the first couple weeks I got the game,” Johnson said.
“I’m not going to lie. He’s definitely got some skill. He knew a lot more stuff about the game. I was kind of behind on that part … (so) he beat me up pretty good in those games. He’s definitely welcome to have those wins. I’ve been bothering him (to play) a couple of times, but I guess the champ doesn’t want to come out of retirement.
“I’m very good now. That’s exactly why I need Lemar to step up and actually play me.”
Both Johnson and Rogers grudgingly give Durant props, their stilted praise sung through gritted teeth.
“I actually put him out in our Madden League. Ask him about that. I played him in playoffs and eliminated him,” said Rogers, who said he would also remind Durant about beating him in a foot race, something that left the now-Lion “pretty salty.”
“He was like ‘you’re lucky’ … he was making excuses. There’s always something, right?
“I would bet on Lemar against any other people in the CFL, for sure. I’ve seen him play. I know how he’s gonna play and what he’s gonna do, and people usually can’t handle that. I’ll put a brown, Canadian hundred dollar bill down on Lemar against anyone in the CFL. I wouldn’t put ($100) down on me, though. I’d put like $20.
“You can tell him that, but we don’t want to get his ego up too much.”
Jim Benning says the messy divorce between star scout Judd Brackett and the Vancouver Canucks is easy to explain.
As a precondition to extending his contract with the Canucks, Brackett wanted certain conditions met. While the specifics of those conditions aren’t known, they fall under the general umbrella of autonomy.
Benning, for his part, wasn’t willing to grant those conditions which is why he’s parted ways with Brackett, the Canucks director of amateur scouting.
“He was offered a two-year extension,” the Canucks general manager said of Brackett.
“He rejected it. In rejecting it, he wanted certain conditions. He has total autonomy within his role, but he was asking for things I wanted to be involved in and I wasn’t willing to give up.”
And maybe it’s that simple. Maybe there’s nothing to see here and everyone should just go about their business.
The problem is things are seldom that simple when it comes to the Canucks.
“I leave proud of the work we did, the collaboration within the department and the replenishment of the prospect pool,” Brackett wrote in his own news release.
“Unfortunately, an agreement over the level of the input going forward with regard to staff personnel and process could not be reached. For those who worked with me, I enjoyed working as a team and please know your friendships are forever.”
Brackett did not respond to a text message requesting further comment on Friday, but it’s interesting he used the words “collaboration” and “working as a team” in his release.
Then again, there are a lot of interesting entry and exit points to this story.
Brackett had been with the Canucks for 12 years and was named director of amateur scouting in August 2015. He would oversee four drafts, beginning in 2016.
In 2017 and 2018, the Canucks selected foundational players Elias Pettersson and Quinn Hughes in the first round and added pieces like goalie Michael DiPietro, defencemen Jack Rathbone and Jett Woo and forwards Kole Lind and Tyler Madden, who was flipped to Los Angeles in the Tyler Toffoli trade, in later rounds.
The finally tally isn’t in, but those drafts have the potential to be among the richest in franchise history.
Any number of narratives have since emerged about who had the most influential voice in those picks.
Then-team president Trevor Linden turned the 2017 NHL entry draft over to Brackett, but Benning says the Canucks’ picks in 2017 and 2018 were the result of a collective effort within the hockey department.
“I don’t get into the politics and the nonsense,” the GM said.
“You know, this guy drafted this guy or this guy drafted that guy. Winning organizations don’t do that.”
Maybe, but when Linden was fired in late July 2018, Brackett lost a key ally. The Cape Cod, Mass., native was further alienated this summer when changes were made to the Canucks scouting department without his input.
Those changes included the firing of scouts Dan Palango and Paul Gallagher and the hiring of former Vancouver Giants coach Troy Ward. Chris MacDonald also left the Canucks to join the Arizona Coyotes staff.
Benning maintains the Canucks amateur scouting department is still strong and with this year’s draft likely occurring in September, the Canucks may look to fill Brackett’s position.
“It’s still too early to tell now,” he said, before adding:
“We’re not going to skip a beat here. We have a good foundation for our scouting group.”
Benning was asked if, ultimately, the split with Brackett was over the question of autonomy.
“That’s fair,” he said. “I come from a scouting background. I believe in collaboration and the chain of command. The director of amateur scouting either reports to the director of player personnel, the assistant GM or the GM.
“I’ve been in the business for 28 years. I don’t know too many places where the team is going to give a head scout total autonomy to make all the picks without collaborating with people higher up in the chain of command.”
But sources familiar with the situation say Brackett didn’t want complete autonomy.
He wanted a voice at the table and, once Linden was removed, his voice wasn’t as important.
Either way, Brackett’s name has been connected with the new Seattle franchise.
That could add another interesting twist to the soap opera.
As it is, amateur scouting has been a notorious problem with the Canucks for most of their 50 years and it finally appeared to be fixed.
We’ll find out soon enough if that fix is permanent.
We’re not going to skip a beat here. We have a good foundation for our scouting group.” Jim Benning