EA Sports has released some more information about changes coming to "Madden 09."

The Madden Lab touched on the changes, and says they're all for the better.

After looking at them, I agree with two of the three changes. The biggest of the three changes is the spectacular catch, which is pretty much one of the big reasons why nearly everyone switched to the New England Patriots midway through the Madden Challenge tournament series.

Once everyone saw how easy it was for Randy Moss to get catches over his defenders, it was exploited to no end. EA Sports confirmed that the manual use of this feature has been removed from the All-Pro or All-Madden (tournament) levels of the game.

The other two changes are the Wildcat Package and the QB Sprint Back.

The QB Sprint Back is when your quarterback grabs the ball off the snap and runs back to avoid the quick pass rush. EA Sports announced that if the quarterback runs back about 15 yards, the receiver icons will disappear. That's huge for teams that have an immobile quarterback.

The elimination of the Wildcat Package is something I'm not a big fan of because I don't think it's going to be as bad as people think. Under this package, the running back can move to the quarterback position. There's some talk that this could create unrealistic gameplay. Example: If Clinton Portis can throw with any accuracy, then Washington becomes a top-three team (Jason Campbell isn't going to win tournaments with his stats). So in that case, everyone will use the Wildcat Package and pretty much run the option play all day. The same can be said for LaDanian Tomlinson in goal-to-go situations for San Diego. But those are rare cases. We're not going to see 32 Michael Vicks pop up because of this package.

EA Sports could leave the package in the game, and leave it up to tournament organizers to decide if the package should be allowed in tournaments.

Is there someone that's going to show up in the next two weeks and just put up insane statistics to take down Emmanuel "Master" Rodriguez of the Dallas Venom? If he or she is out there, I'd like to meet them in person.

There was all of this talk about how the "Dead or Alive 4" division in the Championship Gaming Series was supposed to be the toughest in the league. With that, you'd expect the best person to be 7-2, and the worst person to be 4-6 or something close to that.

That makes Rodriguez's 10-0 all that more special.

Look at the limits he's been taken to:

Perfects: 1
1-2 Rounds: 8
3 or More Rounds: 1

He's given up a total of 17 rounds, which averages out to 1.7 rounds per contest - in the toughest division the league has.

The next best Dead or Alive 4 player, San Francisco's NinjaCW, has given up 35 rounds, and he's taken three losses (7-3)

As I've mentioned before, last year they announced the MVP award after the championship match. But even if by some stretch of the imagination that Dallas doesn't get there, can Rodriguez's efforts be trumped by someone else?

I also mentioned that I predicted Rodriguez to go 10-1 into the final matchup of the season -- against last year's best player, Ryan "Offbeat Ninja" Ward. But that would mean that Rodriguez would lose to Jeremy "Black Mamba" Florence before then. Rodriguez is so on a roll, it would be hard to stick to that prediction.

On Major League Gaming's Web site, they made note that there were nearly 1.4 million streams of the weekend broadcast that took place in San Diego a couple weekends ago. Also, they hit the mark with the young viewer. You can read more right here.

The live online broadcast of MLG’s competition drew a Male 12-34 audience comparable to or larger than many traditional male and youth-focused cable networks and many major cable sporting events. Moreover, viewers watched for an average of 81 minutes, revealing that audience wasn’t just sizeable, it was also deeply engaged.

Viewership of the TV-quality broadcast, with live commentary and graphics, doubled from the debut broadcast at the Meadowlands less than two months ago:

• 270,000 total unique Male 12-34 viewers
• 81 minutes average viewing time per viewer
• 1.4 million video streams
• 360,000 hours of video consumed

That is amazing, considering that broadcast viewing, in any medium, on a Saturday is the weakest of the week (which is why you don't see great sitcoms shown on Saturdays, because people aren't home).

Remember when the Patriots went 16-0 by beating the New York Giants? That drew in 34.5 million viewers. But because it was on a Saturday, it never had a chance of breaking any records even though the game was shown on three networks!

So if you think about what M.L.G did, it's amazing. Remember, they're only pulling people in through their Web site. There wasn't any television broadcast. And yet, they get 1.4 million streams.

The qualifying course for the "Mario Kart Wii" tournament on June 28 in Rancho Cucamong a is ...

SNES Mario Circuit 3

Remember, you're ranked on your best lap.

Good luck, and see you Saturday.