NFL Head Coach 09 is purely for fans of the previous HC and strategists who love Football. To anybody else its worthless
Many people, such as myself, who picked this game up probably has played the first Head Coach. If you have, you quickly realize that a lot has been changed. You start by simply selecting the team you would like to coach, either coaching as the present coach or your own created coach. The customization of one's created coach in the game's career mode has been stripped down significantly. Instead of giving your coach your own style and selecting gameday and office clothes (as well as body size, and head and face features), you're left to punch in your name and select a preset face and body type. After that, you pick a personality type, and use skill point to increase different attributes all benefitting yourself in your career. There are also different special skills to choose from that make your coach a step ahead on the field. Once your done with your coach you can choose to begin in the offseason and prepare for the draft or jump right right in training camp. While this all is simple and quick, it's also very bland and makes the game seem more forced than fluid. Interviews for coaching jobs (Actually, interviews period), staff meetings, and the visual sight of seeing your coach working in his office have all been removed and replaced by your trusty "Clipboard" and menu, a point respect system called your "Approval Rating", and a live motion background of the offices and stadium of the team you coach for.
The career mode had been changed in what seems to be an attempt to make the game go by quicker. It's effective, but yet again it makes the whole thing seem forced. One new feature is "Free Agent Bidding" which allows the player to join a live auction with other teams. The process is quick, fair, and honestly an enjoyable experience. One major flaw however, is that mediocre to average players often get more out of you than they would in a real life experience. You'll find yourself giving a multi-million deal to a player whose overall might only be around 80. Free agent auction opportunities also feel like email spam at times. You often get offers for positions you really don't need at all (ex. You may coach the Patriots and receive constant QB auctions). The contract negotiation system has been changed; you now "sit down" with the player and "discuss" different salaries and "incentives" to make the player play harder. Again, this is a nice addition yet it comes with some negatives such as overpaying the player just because the deal you find fair isn't what he wants. That's understandable when read, but when trying to negotiate with an 82 overall WR, and he only wants 90 overall money, it can be irritating. The biggest letdown of the new features is the new "Trading Negotiation". The idea of it sounds smart and fair; the player chooses one out a few different packages (rated by the other team using a 5 star format) in exchange for a player or a draft pick. Pretty nice idea, but as you play you'll find that every team will usually ask for next year's draft picks versus a player for player trade. There are no multi player deals given, only one player deals in which the other team will ask for your picks and occasionally a player you may have placed on your trading block. When you try and trade for a player, you can only send offers for the players on the other teams trading block (So if you're thinking about shipping off a high profile player for another high caliber player, it probably won't happen). Training camp has been replaced with you simply selecting what you want as your primary focus that day in practice, and seeing the effects of it. It makes the weeks go by, but whether or not you want to run plays yourself or just sim practice should have been something made optional to the player.
On the gameplay side of this game, it's a little aged and unexciting at times. There is no option to "Audible" in-game; when you run a no-huddle you either re-run your last play, or your coordinator will choose a play for you, which is annoying because you might when you spike the ball or pass and you don't have the option too. After big plays are made or crucial plays are given up by your team, it gives you the option to react calmly, or emotionally. This is similar to the first Head Coach, where you could walk to sidelines to scold, appreciate, and/or motivate players, yet it's nothing like it at all. After a while you figure out what to choose pretty routinely. Something else they left out was the option to talk to your players about the way they play during the game, and the different ways you could give strategy to your team in which directs how they play. In the previous Head Coach you could tell your QB to go for short passes and stay in the pocket, and if that wasn't working you could change that up. On '09, you just let the players do their thing. I raged a few times because of this (I was using the Raiders and JaMarcus Russell scrambled when there were open receivers and sat in the pocket while being blitzed). "Defining Moments" are nice. They're the clutch situations during games where quick decisions are needed like 4th and shorts near the goal line, or whether or not you onside kick when you're behind. The decisions are influenced by the effect they have on your "Approval Rating". You have two decisions: play it safe and receive a drop in your Approval Rating, or take the gutsy move and make your rating sky rocket. But again, this is another flawed feature. If you take the safe route, you lose points no matter what, whereas if you take the gutsy move, you either succeed and get points added to your rating, or fail and remain at your current rating. This just leads players to play aggressive, taking chances just because the game will rate you as a bad coach just for playing conservatively.
The game features a Multiplayer mode, a "Coach Now" mode, and the option to download plays from other coaches online. A cool feature, however it's plagued with the constant notification of EA servers for the game being down.
Overall, NFL Head Coach 09 is a game mostly for returning Head Coach Fans. Newcomers may get aggravated by its stiff gameplay and limited coaching options. I wouldn't recommend this game to any die hard Madden fans, this is more for a strategist with a love for the game of Football. By now the game is worth what it costs in stores, and if you're like me and just look for a title to burn time on and you like football, this game is well worth your five dollars.