The Madden review didn't surprise me, unfortunately. Herschie started a topic a few weeks back about his time with the game, and the general consensus was that the game made a good first impression, before it became obvious that, well, "it's Madden." Another takeaway from that thread is that plenty of us are still pretty fond of the classic 16-bit series, most of us gravitating towards Madden '92. I still own '92, myself, as well as a few other games in the series, and still come back to them from time to time. I also love Mutant League Football, which gets a regular amount of playtime in my home, as well.
At the risk of sounding like a shill, has anyone out there tried the recently released Mutant Football League? I know it's currently only a downloadable game, but a physical release is coming next month for all three current home systems. I'm thinking about picking it up since, for one, it retails for $30, and for two, it'll be the only modern football game available for the Switch. Sorry, but downloading Ten Yard Fight from the eShop doesn't count
I haven't played MFL, myself, but I enjoy it's predecessor, and the reviews I've read have been fairly positive. If nothing else, it's not a perfect or particularly well-made game, but it's fun, and you can tell the developers were putting forth the effort to make something different from the more traditional football games out there. Of course, the same could be said for the Mutant League games on the Sega Genesis - they weren't the best, but they were fun, and were a great alternative to the Madden and NHL series on the console.
Since a fair amount of us here seem to be tired of Madden year in and year out, myself included, it might be worth it to give MFL a shot.