Over the past few weeks, EA Sports has been meting out a pair of videos a week for this year's version of Madden NFL football. Probably not coincidentally, there really hasn't been a whole lot else going on in the world of sports during those weeks. Sure, some team or another won the World Cup, and the MLB had its All-Star break. But unless you like the sounds of vuvuzelas or Chris Berman repeatedly saying, "Back back back back back!" during the Home Run Derby, it hasn't really been all that appealing to you. Just this past weekend, teams in the National Football League threw open the doors of their training camps to rookies and selected veterans. Basically, the summer sports doldrums are nearly at an end, as soon teams will start playing some goddamned football.

In the vein of keeping my enthusiasm for the game as high as possible, EA has delivered the final two team introduction videos. Today we get to meet the NFC North (with Cris Collinsworth filling in for the voice of Detroit Lions coach Jim Schwartz) and the NFC South, home division of the Super Bowl champion New Orleans Saints. It might be redundant to once again point out how good the character models and environments look, but honestly, this game looks incredible. It's quite an achievement for a game with annual installments to improve so much from one year to the next, but it's something that seems to come naturally to the Madden team.

NFC NORTH

NFC SOUTH

It's worth mentioning that over the course of the weekend, my on-again off-again relationship with the Philadelphia Phillies baseball team has once again been kindled, thanks in large part to an impressive four-game win streak. So it may be a bit early to discount all sports in favor of nothing more than football players showing up for training camp, but the fact is that I can almost smell the pigskin in the air, and I like what I'm smelling.