Madden Gras rolls through The Big Easy

Sitting in the balcony room of Ernst Café in New Orleans, Saints legend Joe Horn was his “Hollywood” persona again.

The former All-Pro receiver had his game-face in high gear and his motor mouth finely-tuned, as he juked and jived his way into the end-zone to give his team (the Saints) an early 7-0 advantage.

“That’s what I’m talking about, son,” Horn said as he pranced into the end zone. “That’s all day, baby. You don’t mean nothing to me, but I mean everything to you. It’s going to be a long day.”

On the other end of the spectrum was future Hall of Fame halfback Marshall Faulk, who was also locked into the gridiron battle.

With brand-new sunglasses acting as a helmet visor, Faulk answered Horn’s score with one of his own to tie the game at 7 to start the second quarter.

“Just give it some time, Joe, just give it some time,” Faulk proclaimed.

Neither Faulk nor Horn came out of retirement in the past week. But the friendly gridiron competition came on the next best playing field, as the two battled one another in Madden 11 last Monday at EA Sports’ Madden Gras event, which celebrated the release of the worldwide video game, which features Saints’ quarterback Drew Brees as the cover athlete.

“I’m so excited to be here,” Horn said. “Drew being on the cover, that was a match made in heaven. He deserved that. Last year, he played and showed everyone that he was the best quarterback in the world. This is his day.”

In total, Horn and Faulk joined NFL legend Marcus Allen and Saints heroes like Mike McKenzie, Bobby Hebert, Fred McAfee, Chuck Muncie and Deuce McAllister for the event, which featured outdoor music and culminated in the first copy of the game being sold at 11 p.m.

“Being here to enjoy the Madden experience with so many former great players, and being able to be back in one of my favorite cities in the world, that’s special to me,” Muncie said. “Being able to be a part of this Madden Gras, that just fits perfectly with the city of New Orleans.”

Thousands of fans throughout the day lined up S. Peters Street in the Big Easy to test out the video game on several gaming stations around Ernst Café.

For the younger players like Faulk, Horn and McKenzie, Madden has been a part of their entire careers.

But for the older guys like Muncie, Allen and Hebert, the video game evolution is something they’re not fully used to.

But it’s catching on pretty quickly, even to the “old guys.”

“All we had was the old electronic football game that you plugged in and the guys vibrated around, that’s all we had when I played,” Muncie said with a laugh. “Atari with the PacMan and Donkey Kong , that’s about my full experiences with the video games. … But I have a lot of nieces and nephews, and I’m still involved with the game a lot, so I see kids playing these games all of the time, and I know it’s a big deal to them.”

The “Cajun Cannon” Hebert agreed and said he’s more like the “Cajun Cannot” with the video game controller in his fingers.

But that doesn’t stop him from trying and having fun, nonetheless.

“If I had a rating in terms of how well I play, I’d have the lowest possible rating,” he said. “T-Bob and Beaux were kind of joking with me earlier telling me, ‘You know, Dad, if you played against any fans, you’d get killed.’ And they’re probably right, because I probably would.”

But new on this year’s game is the “game-flow” feature, which is a one-button feature that allows the Madden console’s artificial intelligence to automatically pick a play for someone, which is designed to make the game easy for less-experienced gamers.

“That makes it pretty simple,” Allen said. “Even someone like me can play it with the game-flow on.”

But regardless of the video game skills of those attendance, everyone agreed last Monday’s party was all about Brees – the first-ever Saints player to ever be on the cover of the Madden game.

“It’s so great that we have one of our own guys voted onto the cover of Madden,” McAfee said. “It’s just a wonderful day. … There’s no one out there who deserves this more than Drew does.”

McAllister agreed and said the Madden Gras party being held on the same day the Super Bowl champions visited the White House just shows how far the franchise and the city of New Orleans has come.

“I think it’s all full circle now for New Orleans,” he said. “It’s pretty special. And I’m very excited and definitely very happy for the fans that’ve come along with us.”

And about that so-called Madden-jinx?

No one seems to be too concerned about the ability or inability to jinx Brees, because he lifted the ultimate “jinx” and won a Super Bowl for New Orleans.

“If anyone can do it, it’s Drew,” McAfee said. “I mean, just look at what he’s already done. He’s no stranger to doing things that have never been done before. That’s why we’re here right now.”

Former NFL stars Marshall Faulk (left) and Joe Horn duke it out in the newly released Madden NFL 11. An all-day celebration of the game’s release was held in Brees’ honor last Monday at Ernst Café in New Orleans. CASEY GISCLAIR TRI-PARISH TIMES