What exactly goes on in the mind of an NFL head coach? Well, besides the obvious "Dear God, can someone please shut Terrell Owens the hell up?". Well, there's a whole lot more than you think. Despite your yelling at their certain actions from time to time, an NFL head coach has a lot to process, like players to keep their eyes on, strategies to develop, things to study, and, worst of all, struggles to overcome to avoid being one of the cuts at the end of the season. (We had, what, seven this year?) Now, EA Sports has taken a turn from the typical Madden formula and given us a brand new game that looks at the NFL coaching picture, and it could be the shift most of us have been looking for.

NFL Head Coach is in no way a typical football game. In fact, during the course of the game, while you'll be able to watch the Madden engine in action, you won't be playing any football at all. That's right, instead of just tacking on a head coach feature in Madden 07, EA opted to create a brand new game that puts you into the shoes of a wanna-be looking to make his way into the Hall of Fame ranks. Of course, the road to victory isn't easy, as you must endure a number of challenges and goals in order to become the next Bill Cowher. Or John Madden.

The term at hand here is "3D strategy sports game", which is how EA describes it. In the game, you'll design your own coach, complete with customized look (sorry, no suit) and features. Then, you'll sit down for an interactive interview with the owner, who will test your football prowess. Don't worry, even if you suck at it, you'll still get your chance at coaching, but you will have a lesser team that has taken you in. From there, you'll be introduced to a complex schedule with a series of emails and phone calls to endure, and then you'll go right into the strategy-building field with your players, developing a number of plays and working with a number of staff to help build your next playoff contenders into fruition.

As each game unfolds (which happens pretty much in real time with the help of the Madden engine), you can watch your results unfold. Either you're going to see some big plays come off with the kind of excellence you expected, or you're going to be knee-deep in doo-doo and trying to explain why your team isn't playing as sharply as you expect. Like any real coaching experience, NFL Head Coach lets this unfold with the kind of feeling of real events, where you'll have to focus more on strategies and such in order to get better the following week. No one wants to have another lackluster year with the Green Bay Packers, you know.

The game features a heavy career mode that expands a full thirty years, so you can watch your coaching legacy thrive and make your own alliances and enemies throughout, and you can also hop into a quick coaching match to take helm of the game's easy control scheme and get a hang of the tactics at hand. There's no word yet as to whether a head-to-head mode is being offered, online or off, but it'd be a great feature to see, allowing gamers to match up against each other and let their brains do most of the work. Sure, my buddy Ryan can kick my ass at Madden, but can he handle my coaching heat? I hope I get the opportunity to see. (He's dead either way- I've been working on my passing game.)

NFL Head Coach looks to be just the kick in the pants that EA's football legacy needs, a crucial change that will no doubt put a refocus on the gameplay at hand and allow gamers to see a different side of the story, through the eyes of those on the sidelines instead of their favorite quarterback or wide receiver. How this will unfold in the final product has yet to be seen, but, come June, we should get a better idea, and we'll certainly be back with a final review. I just hope I can design a coach who actually has a better smile than Cowher. The guy smiles once all year at the Super Bowl, and, I dunno, I'd like to be just a little happier about my job than that. I guess it's more about pride than grinning.