Arena Football is a non factor. For me the challenge is NCAA and Madden. You need to get it out before then and when football hype is high. They need to release it on NFL Draft Weekend and market the game as a pro game.
Quite frankly, they should do the game like NCAA. Use all the real numbers for the players and make the ratings accordingly for all 32 teams in the NFL. You just can't use the actual names or team names/uniforms/stadiums. EA uses player numbers for NCAA and have done the same thing in the past so I don't see the legal issue. People that think 2K will ever get the NFL license again need to give up on that dream and just piss the NFL off. They're the ones that wanted an exclusive license and are happy with it so just give the fans what they want and more importantly what they will pay for.