Take a look at wishlists for almost any annualized sports game and you’ll see fans requesting changes to commentary. It’s an area of the video games that is one of the most difficult to reproduce from actual televised broadcasts. Once a commentary team is in place developers hesitate to make major changes, as the audio libraries continue to build year-by-year and priorities inevitably are directed elsewhere. Scrapping and starting over is rare.

The Madden NFL series is one of the few that has done so however – and multiple times in the last decade. The latest is about to take place as Brandon Gaudin and Charles Davis will be replacing Jim Nantz and Phil Simms with Madden NFL 17.

Rich Grisham interviews Gaudin and Davis, along with Madden producer Christian McLeod, in this episode of the Press Row Podcast presented by Hit The Pass. The group discusses everything from how the antiquated commentary system has been “blown up” for Madden 17, why Gaudin and Davis were selected for their respective positions in the booth, how commentary may differ from mode-to-mode, examples of some bizarre lines they’ve had to record, and the work that will be done regularly during the season to update commentary.

On the show this episode:

Rich Grisham (@richgrisham), Out of the Park Developments/Hit The Pass
Charles Davis (@CFD22), Fox Sports/NFL Network
Brandon Gaudin (@BrandonGaudin), Georgia Tech/Westwood One/Turner
Christian McLeod (@CMcLeod_EA), EA Sports

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