If you believe the commercials (and if you do, just how gullible are you?), a new holiday is on the way. August 22, or as EA Sports calls it, Maddenoliday, is unquestionably one of the most anticipated dates on the calendar in the videogame industry. Why?

Apparently, people still care about the Madden NFL series. Madden NFL ’07 comes out August 22 on all major consoles.

And I just don’t care.

I used to love the Madden series; in the days of the Super NES and Genesis, Madden was easily the best gridiron action in town, certainly much better than the Tecmo Super Bowls and NFL Quarterback Clubs of the world. But since the series made its debut on PlayStation, thus ushering the series into 3D, Madden has suffered.

Not in sales—it’s obvious each new installment of the series sells about as well as any other game this side of the new Grand Theft Auto—but in gameplay. While Sony broke new ground with its GameDay series, Madden seemed to stand pat in its conventions, conventions that looked slow, clunky, and frustrating in the 3D world.

Yet people continued to eat it up, extolling the series’ virtues with each new installment. The gameplay hardly ever changed—AI was questionable at best, laughable at worst…running the football was always a crapshoot…money plays were as much a part of the game as before. GameDay was a better game—faster, more fluid, more accessible—but everyone still clamored over Madden.

Even as GameDay fell from grace, a new player entered the fray: Sega and its 2K series. Again, the games were faster, smoother, and easier to play than Madden, who suffered the same problems with each successive addition, despite the evolution of videogame technology and videogame football. Sega’s series gained in popularity each year, and after a masterful 2K5 effort—which was 30 dollars cheaper than Madden NFL ’05—EA gobbled up the exclusive NFL license, thus killing the football videogame for those of us no longer under Madden’s inexplicable spell.

Me? I still play ESPN NFL 2K5, because I think it’s still a better game than anything EA has come out with in the years since. And though I’ve yet to play Madden ’07, and I’m not real sure I want to, I have a feeling it’s gonna be so similar to the previous editions I still won’t care.

I have a hard time playing a football game where successful passes into triple coverage are the norm. I have a hard time playing a football game where the standard rushing stat line is eight yards on 31 carries. I can’t get behind a game where the players look like deformed midgets and they move like snails in molasses.

I just can’t get into Madden NFL anymore. I appreciate its effect on the videogame industry, as well as on the National Football League, but I just don’t think it’s that good a game anymore.

People are still going to buy the game…in droves, even. I guarantee EB Games, GameStop, and all those stores will be swamped on the 22nd, finalizing preorders, picking up the game, and/or praying to find a copy that hasn’t yet found a home.

Me? I’ll be sitting in my room, playing ESPN NFL 2K5, guiding my Redskins to another Super Bowl campaign. Two years after its release, ESPN 2K5 still provides me with hard-hitting, fun football action. I was bored after two hours with Madden.

So, if you’ll excuse me, I’ll skip Maddenoliday this year. Wake me up when we get to National Halo Day.