The first round of play has concluded in The Checkdown Madden 20 Tournament that aired live on Twitch TV under the EAMaddenNFL channel. The tournament kicked off with a lot of hype stemming from what Derwin James of the Los Angeles Chargers did to Mike Vick in a prior tourney earlier this week.
This tourney had a few seasoned veterans like Tyreek Hill and Tyrann Mathieu of the Super Bowl Champion Kansas City Chiefs, Denzel Ward and Jarvis Landry of the Cleveland Browns, Desean Jackson of the Philadelphia Eagles, Deebo Samuel* of the San Francisco 49ers and finally Keenan Allen and Derwin James of the Los Angeles Chargers.
Match 1: Danzel Ward vs Jarvis Landry (Texans 10 – Browns 9)
In a defensive battle with loads of sacks and minimal offense, Ward came back to win in the fourth. After successfully converting a field goal, the game concluded 10-9, with the Texans over the Browns. Will Fuller was the offensive star for the Texans with a TD and big run out of the Wildcat formation.
Jarvis just couldn’t get anything going with Baker (surprise), but had a chance to pull off a miracle pass to the RB in the flat for an extremely long gain or possible TD for the win. However, his juke skills need work on the sticks as he hit the ill advised spin move instead of the juke ending the play with a short gain. Ward sealed the win with an incredible coffin corner kick to the two yard line giving Landry poor field position and no way besides a miracle hail mary. His Hail Mary was knocked down at the Texans two yard line.
Match 2: Tyrann Mathieu vs Tyreek Hill (Chiefs 32 – Bears 62)
62-32 was the final score of this game, but let’s look at the big picture here: Hill put up 62 points with 3 TDs from the Defense in this beatdown.
Hill came out like a buzzsaw putting up 21-0 in the first quarter. Honey badger did his best trying to keep up with passes to Watkins and Hill from Patty Mahommes. However, Hill continued showing his skills on both sides of the ball capitalizing on deep touchdown passes and solid user picks (3 pick 6s as a User). However, you could see some holes in Hills defense as TM put up 32 and lots of blown coverage. Will he tighten it up next round? Side note: he used the Bears folks. “Da Bears!”
The semifinals are set. Who do you have taking it all tomorrow? ? pic.twitter.com/hPgd6tl5KL
— The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) April 2, 2020
Match 3: Desean Jackson vs Deebo Samuel* (Unable to join due to server) (Eagles 25-30)
The Desean Jackson vs Deebo match was met with technical issues keeping deebo out. This put Jackson up against the cpu. The 49ers putting up a pick on Djax after a very productive drive down the field but Wentz trying his best Lamar Jackson impression and looking more like Ryan Leaf served up the P6 combo meal to push the score to 10-0 Niners. DJax, who is the nephew of rap icon and avid video game player Snoop Dogg, is very skilled at the game but stated it was different playing PS4 over his preferred Xbox. Like a true soldier, he said “no excuse” and still hopped on.
Still playing the CPU, the servers cut off and the game was stopped and Jackson moved on with a technical win as Deebo was still unable to log in. He moves on to the semi finals for the winner of Allen vs Derwin. Jackson lost to the CPU 30-25 on a last minute drive and run TD.
Match 4: Derwin James vs Keenan Allen (Seahawks 14 – Ravens 6)
Derwin James is amazing with his play calling! Period. Not being a fanboy or a bandwagon guy after the beatdown he put on Mike Vick (I called him winning anyway prior to the tourney completion). He is just a Swiss Army knife of stuff on offense. Motions, double motions, RPO plays, rollout, runs, pocket passing presences, James knows when to run out the pocket, throws the ball away to not take unnecessary sacks and loss of yards. And that’s just offense. He proved he can shut down a gameplan on defense as well.
Keenan Allen is a very good player as well with a strong skill set, but he could not get the big plays going with the Ravens’ offense. James did a great job containing and limiting Allen throughout the game. 14-6 was the final score in this contest. During the post interview Derwin expressed “I just wanted to not turn the ball over and just play smart. I didn’t let loose like I wanted to, but the rest of the way I’m going to go all out now. Seahawks over Ravens.”
Now, Djax will face Derwin and Hill will face Ward in the semifinals tomorrow.
Once again it is so great to see professional athletes coming out for the fans to put together such a great benefit for such a worthy cause. Round 2 will be coming up soon.