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 There are a lot of players that had their non-Nintendo NFL careers rendered completely meaningless by Tecmo Super Bowl. Christian Okoye had only a brief stint in the NFL, but because of Tecmo, we all know of him as the crazy African who exploded opponents into a million pieces of despair. Bob Nelson might not even be a real person, much less a former NFL player, but anyone even remotely familiar with Tecmo knows him as the legend of the lurch. Steve Grogan falls into this category as well, except that his reputation isn't similarly sugarcoated. Grogan's real career had somewhat more cachet than the shooting star career path of Okoye and far more than the "a single Black Cat exploding" campaign of Nelson. To the unitiated, this might make it pretty surprising that the previously mentioned athletes are remembered as legends and Grogan is remembered as one of the most awkwardly awful video game characters of all time. Yes, this goes way beyond football and sports games. Steve Grogan's inoperability rests comfortably in the annals between any game played with the Power Glove and the outright rebellion of the characters against controller commands that is the gameplay hallmark of Tag Team Wrestling. The reasons for Grogan's perplexing control problems are diverse, but they essentially can be reduced to his outrageous accuracy issues. Outside of maybe Mark Vlasic in the Sega Genesis version of Tecmo, no video game football player has ever had more trouble keeping the ball within the programmed portions of the game than Steve Grogan. This is not a good thing for any computerized football player, but it is much more damaging in Tecmo than modern football simulations, which have moved beyond bare bones strength and accuracy requirements for quarterbacks. In fact, many Madden franchises have been doomed by a gun-slinging quarterback's inability to play through a herpes outbreak or avoid elecrocuting dogs for leisure. J.T. O'Sullivan may not have the best arm in the newest edition of Madden, but his ability to control his reproductive health with Valtrex at least partially offsets this deficiency. Unfortunately, Tecmo affords no such relief for Grogan.
Inaccuracy is what separates the bad quarterbacks from the "cover your eyes, I'm extremely shitty" ones. When your quarterback is weak, you can at least compensate for this in deciding where you are going to pass. But when your quarterback is inaccurate, there's no way to decide what you should do. When Jim Harbaugh overthrows his receivers by ten yards on eight straight downs, you wonder if you need to adjust the passing plays in your playbook. When Steve Grogan overshoots his man by forty and follows it up by throwing to the side of the field opposite of what you chose, you wonder if you should call ITT Tech because there appear to be some serious programming errors. The Patriots have more problems than I care to list. Their "skill" players wouldn't start for Houston (Cougars, not Oilers) and the defense is so horrible that its most appealing asset is having two players whose last names rhyme. The last thing they need on this team is Grogan. Ignoring the obvious "substitute Marc Wilson" strategy, putting Grogan at the helm of this team was borderline sadistic. Play a season with the Grogan-led Patriots and try not to go insane. I had a cousin that tried this once and after one of Grogan's passes bounced off the scoreboard and came out the top of the physical game cartridge and hit him in the eye, he finally gave up on the quest. I'm not even going to question his resolve for not sticking it out, because that was the fourth time it happened. Against the Jets. Attributes:  Running Speed- 25 This attribute is useless for all quarterbacks that have a real name. Also useless for unnamed quarterbacks unless they play for the Browns or the Bills - when they're not cheating. Thus, this stat always pertains to the Bills. Rushing Power- 69 This is nineteen points higher than Dennis Byrd, a man who has powerfully "rushed" into the person of Steve Grogan in countless Tecmo contests. If this mistake was made simply to provide motivation to Dennis Byrd, well, did we really need to put another brick in Grogan's pathetic wall? Maximum Speed- 6 Holy shit. No, seriously, holy shit. Passing Speed- 19 This might be the most accurate Tecmo attribute ever. Taken at face value, this means that when Grogan throws the ball, he can run downfield and beat it to its destination. Taken at comedic value, this means that Grogan provides more fodder for this website than Xanga and the World Wrestling Federation combined. Pass Control- 25 I have no idea what's attempting to be measured here. If they mean thrown passes by Grogan, then this presumably should have been zero. But if somehow Grogan is correctly coded as a 25, what disasters does a pass control rating of zero yield? Answer: When you press B, the quarterback sits down and eats the football. Accuracy of Passing- 31 I'm not sure what the difference is between "pass control" and "accuracy of passing." I tried looking it up in the manual, but my brain melted when I read this: "Jim Harbaugh is one of the most accurate passers in the NFL." Avoid Pass Block- 44 It's actually a negative for Grogan that this isn't zero, because until someone someday catches it on the "x", the only way he's avoiding interceptions or continuous humiliation is by getting his passes batted down. |
