Here’s the thing about Madden ratings for rookies, they’re always low. Sometimes embarrassingly low. Odell Beckham Jr. opened up his Madden 15 campaign with a 75. This year he’ll probably be a 93-94 and he’s on the cover. This is how it works.
So the idea that this year’s rookies, who you know have played the game themselves for years, come in thinking they’ll get rankings in the mid-to-high 80s or even 90s is completely insane. I mean, Devin Funchess opens this video thinking he’ll get an 86. The man wasn’t even a first round pick and barely cracked a 4.7 40-yard dash. Did he suffer too many head injuries at Michigan?
Watch the video yourself.
Jameis Winston, for all the criticism he gets and certainly I’m guilty of giving him plenty, shows how smart he is by guessing his rating almost exactly.
Other guys come in and make dumb guesses, but at least it’s guys that should be right by the end of the year. If St. Louis Rams running back Todd Gurley has the season he should, an 85 is a low guess of where his rating will be next season. Amari Cooper guesses 86 and Kevin White says 85 and, again, those will probably be pretty close to next season’s ranking.
If you want complete insanity, look at Phillip Dorsett, Tevin Coleman and Sammie Coates. Only one of those guys is a first-round pick and Coates, though a great pick for the Pittsburgh Steelers, was a third-round pick and there’s no way his rating will open up better than a 70.
EA is releasing the ratings in waves, with the top 10 making their debut first.
Cooper is the top-ranked rookie with an 82. Winston is second with an 81, with Gurley, Leonard Williams and Brandon Scherff all 80s.
Dante Fowler Jr. is the only 79. Melvin Gordon, Kevin White and Marcus Mariota are all 78s and Vic Beasley rounds out the Top 10 with a 77. That means everybody else is lower and in the case of guys like Coates and Duke Johnson, significantly lower. But there’s always a way to fix that. Be awesome.
There’s an old story about former New York Giants defensive end Michael Strahan regarding his Madden rating. Strahan’s first appearance in the game came in Madden 95, obviously coming out in 1994. As a rookie out of Minnesota- Duluth, Strahan had appeared in nine games as a rookie in 1993 and recorded a total of one sack. His Madden rating reflected that performance with a 44. Seeing that number had an effect on Strahan. It was motivation. It was embarrassing to have so low a rating so he worked his ass off to boost it. Three years later he was one of the best defensive ends in football and would eventually end up int he Hall of Fame and eating decorative cakes on TV alongside Kelly Rippa.
So take heart NFL rookies, for most of you there’s nowhere to go but up.
Boobie Dixon joins Williams on porn star blast
Duke Williams wasn’t the only Buffalo Bills player to get smacked down by a porn star this week. Bills back-up running back Anthony “Boobie” Dixon tried his best to live up to his nickname, direct messaging porn star Kaley Kade on her Twitter machine. Like Mia Khalifa before her, she was not impressed and decided to let the world know.
https://twitter.com/EverythingBuf/status/622894175151857664
I have no idea why the Bills seem this obsessed with porn stars and I certainly don’t understand why they don’t just send them a photo of a couple of crisp hundreds to entice them instead of this weak-ass twitter game. Is the Tinder selection that bad in Buffalo?
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Bucs taking Winston to the future
Jameis Winston will have some state-of-the-art help in raising his Madden rating. The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have employed the Sidekiq football simulator from EON Sports VR to help train the rookie quarterback.
The Sidekiq system can create virtual reality game scenarios that will allow Winston to train and practice without putting him or any other player in harm’s way.
“We are excited to be coming in on the front end of this new wave of technology that is designed to supplement the on-field and classroom work that our quarterbacks are already doing,” Bucs GM Jason Licht said. “Obviously, there is no real substitute for being on the field when it comes to getting our players ready for game action. However, this virtual-reality technology allows us to enhance the learning experience for our quarterbacks without requiring them to put in additional time on the practice fields.”
