Brandon Stokley's Madden Admission: Now Video Games Are Impacting Real Ones

In an earlier post, I discussed how fantasy baseball fed the development of "sabermetrics," which in turn was slowly finding its way into baseball management, especially with young general managers weaned on the new techniques. Now video games may be doing a similar thing, with players.

In their first game of the regular season, the Denver Broncos were trailing the Cincinnati Bengals, 7-6, deep in their own territory, with 28 seconds to go. The situation called for a desperation play. So quarterback Kyle Orton threw a long pass downfield to wide receiver Brandon Stokley.

The ball was deflected by a defender, but Brandon Stokley managed to retrieve it mid-air. That was miraculous enough.

But it was the next thing that caught people by surprise. Stokley ran the ball toward the end zone but then turned and ran across the field, parallel to the goal line, before claiming the touchdown. This way, he ate up six precious seconds on the clock, leaving the Bengals with less time to recover.

It was a technique right out of football video games, specifically Madden NFL. Although a "rookie" to the play, Stokley had practiced long hours in front of the screen before executing the play perfectly in "real life."

When asked if he had learned the play from a video game, Stokley said he had.

"I think everybody who's played those games has done that," he told Wired Magazine last month.

Similar things are now happening in other sports.

Sometimes art imitates life. But life can also imitate art.