Madden NFL 12 Blog
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Madden Ratings Debate: New Standard
Posted by Aaron Boulding at 09:00AM on Tuesday, January, 03, 2012
This Black Monday is when coaches are fired, the playoff tournament is set and fans of 20 other teams now need something else on which to focus their attention also represents a turning point here at the Madden Ratings Debate. Every player performance from here on out is going to be magnified under the bright lights and intensity of playoff football. Like everybody else, we’re going to be laser focused on every blunder, every breakout game and all of the mediocrity we’re going to see on this most treacherous road to the Super Bowl.
In the meantime, we’ve got some big issues to tackle in the Madden Ratings Debate. The great majority of players are cleaning out lockers and looking ahead to vacations, treatment and the mental aspects of the 2012 season but we don’t want to let them go before we start discussing the new standard at each position. Determining who the elite players at each position are is one of the best ways to help sort out the rest of the rank and file players when we start looking ahead to Madden NFL 13. As an example it wasn’t until Madden NFL 12 that Aaron Rodgers cracked the elite group of quarterbacks that had been dominated by Peyton Manning and Tom Brady for so many years. In Madden NFL 11, Drew Brees joined them. To up the ante even more, the celebrated Club 99 players are always going to be selected from among the top players at each position. Madden Ratings Czar Donny Moore is going to dive deep into this process after the Super Bowl, but we’re going to get started with the debate right now. A lot of us need something to focus on anyway now that our team’s season is over.
So with all of that in mind here are some leading candidates to become the standards at their positions.
Jimmy Graham – Before all of the Gronkers out there scream their heads off about this one, I want to say let’s look beyond the statistics for a moment. In fact, Rob Gronkoski and “Superstar” Graham’s 2011 catches and yards are so close as to be identical, with the exception of Gronk’s 17 TDs versus Graham’s 11. While they’re both operating in pass happy offenses with HoF caliber QBs that will inflate any tight end’s numbers, Graham is doing it while surrounded by a lot more weapons. Gronkowski’s tremendous athletic ability made him a primary downfield target and a yards-after-catch threat mainly because New England’s offense is so short on talent. Gronkowski, TE Aaron Hernandez and Wes Welker are essentially operating as complimentary slot receivers, which is an achievement itself. Who knows what’s happening on the outside and downfield in that Patriot offense.
Jimmy Graham on the other hand caught 99 passes on Saints team that has receivers that have proven they can do it all. Marques Colston, Lance Moore, Robert Meacham and Devery Henderson have already earned trust and passes from Drew Brees during a fantastic Super Bowl run. And this says nothing of the passes thrown to New Orleans’ running back committee that included 50 catches for Pierre Thomas and 86 for Darren Sproles. There’s only one football to go around and 100 yards on a field to cover yet Jimmy Graham contributed more yards and catches to Brees’ record-setting passing season.
Yeah, there’s more to playing tight end than receiving but in Madden NFL the position has become a weapon in every serious player’s offense because of the new CPU zone defense. A TE that can quickly exploit a zone’s soft spots and make a play over an unathletic linebacker can be a dangerous weapon in any gamer’s offense. Graham’s route running, catching, agility, jumping and spectacular catch ratings all need to be extremely high. His greatest weaknesses are catching in traffic (because he hasn’t had to) and awareness (he’s only played two NFL seasons). I’m not ready to put Graham at a 99 OVR but he’s made the case to be the top receiving tight end in the game already. As the definition of a pass-catching tight end, Graham should be a matchup problem in Madden NFL.
Maurice Jones Drew – Because staying healthy enough to contribute is a big reason why I think MJD should be the top running back in Madden NFL. He’s the best player and the only threat on an overmatched Jaguars offense and he still led the league in carries and yards. That tells me didn’t get hurt in this third full season as a starter and he was actually productive with the rock in his hands. Jones-Drew is a bit of a throwback in a league that’s currently fascinated by the awesome power of quarterbacks to seemingly win and lose games singlehandedly. His touchdown totals were lower this season than in his early years and that goes to JAX’s struggles in the red zone --both in getting there and then converting when they do. In Madden NFL, Jones-Drew has been one of the top running backs for the last few years and this is the year where he needs to step to the front of the line. Chris Johnson just isn’t the same now that he’s got his long term contract; we need to see some consistency out of emerging backs like Matt Forte, Fred Jackson and Arian Foster and everybody is hoping Adrian Peterson can be the dominant player he once was after his late season knee injury. In my mind Maurice Jones-Drew is only in competition with Frank Gore for top running back in Madden NFL and the Inconvenient Truth was noticeably less productive after Week 10 or 11. Again, I’m not saying MJD is a 99 OVR but he has the best combination of athleticism and skills at the position including the crucial toughness and injury attributes.
Calvin Johnson – The 2011 season will go down as the year that Calvin Johnson made the leap to superstar and never looked back. And I’m saying this before Detroit has even played their first playoff game since 99. Megatron is the perfect weapon to have in the playoffs where one play can break a game open and push the team one step closer to the Super Bowl. Calvin Johnson has been a game breaker all season with game winning catches sprinkled throughout the season. In Madden NFL, Calvin Johnson has been highly rated yet still a notch below Larry Fitzgerald and a healthy Andre Johnson at the top of the list. Quarterback and health issues, respectively, with those guys have opened the door for Johnson to move to the top of the heap. Plus guys like DeSean Jackson and Reggie Wayne will surely slip in their OVR ratings going forward. Johnson’s athletic and WR skill ratings are already where they need to be so it’s time to give him the high AWR he’s shown throughout the season and that, I believe, will make him the top WR in Madden NFL for years to come. I said early on in the Madden Ratings Debate that he and Matt Stafford are the best QB-WR tandem in the NFL and I’m sticking with it as long as they have each other.
Justin Smith – Donny Moore knows what he’s doing when it comes to this ratings thing so when he called Justin Smith the best 3-4 defensive end in the NFL, I took notice. And I’ve been convinced that he’s moved past Baltimore’s Haloti Ngata in that regard. Sorting out OLBs and DEs in Madden can be tough if you’re not intimately familiar with a team’s defensive style (3-4 vs 4-3) and that’s an issue that Justin Smith probably won’t clear up any time soon. What I do know is that his outstanding play in 2011 made everybody around him better and pushed San Francisco to one of the best defensive seasons the NFL has seen. Statisticians have mangled football so much for the sake of fantasy games and other analyses that you can miss the actual cleats-on-the-ground ability of players like Smith. Smith has good sack and tackle numbers for a DE, but you should measure him by the stats of the players and defense behind him. Smith disrupts opposing offensive lines without being particularly fast or strong and surely Navarro Bowman, Aldon Smith and Ahmad Brooks will tell you that doesn’t matter. Instead his greatest individual attributes in Madden NFL have to be awareness, pursuit, block shedding and play recognition. He’s not a pure pass rusher like Julius Peppers or Jared Allen and he doesn’t gobble up blockers like Ndamakung Suh or BJ Raji. What Justin Smith does is whatever his team needs on any given play and he does it well enough to give the 49ers a tremendous advantage in their front seven.
The Madden Ratings Debate is an evolving concept and this week we want to engage all of you on all of our platforms. The discussion keeps going on Facebook, Twitter (#MaddenRatingsDebate) and the Madden NFL forums . Debating the new standards at various positions in Madden NFL is something new for all of us and we want to give you all a bit of insight and peak behind the curtain to see how the ratings process works. Let’s figure out the best and work from there.
The Facebookdiscussion generates a lot of heat each week throughout the season as fans like you make the case for their favorite players. Donny Moore tells us all the time he is paying attention to all of our conversations on all of our platforms so let your voice be heard. This week’s Madden NFL 12 podcast should be interesting. The ratings debate is happening all the time in living rooms, locker rooms and centers of football activity everywhere; we’re glad you’re joining us here to contribute.
Be sure check in with me on Twitter throughout the week as well because we want to talk about playoffs. Playoffs? Playoffs!
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Previously by This Author
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Aaron Boulding
Posted at 08:52AM on Tuesday, February, 07, 2012
Madden Ratings Debate: The Meaning of Clutch
Now that he’s done it on the biggest stage, the entire television-watching planet saw it and we’re clear on just what it means, somebody would need to tell us why Eli Manning does NOT deserve the Clutch trait. Right now, he’s the definition of the clutch QB. With that 88-yard game-winning drive where he connected on the biggest play of a surprisingly strong defensive battle (Mario Manningham’s 38 yarder) and went 4-5 the rest of the way, Manning made it look easy.
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Aaron Boulding
Posted at 06:48AM on Tuesday, January, 31, 2012
Madden Ratings Debate: Being Super
Because of the names on each iteration of the game, the season it represents and the dynamic ratings update system, it’s easy to underestimate the impact of a Super Bowl berth on player ratings. A clear example comes from last year when Pittsburgh and Green Bay’s defenses were rated coming into Madden NFL 12. As we entered the 2011 NFL season, Madden NFL 12’s player ratings at launch (late August) were based on 2010 NFL season performances.
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Aaron Boulding
Posted at 07:20AM on Tuesday, January, 17, 2012
Madden Ratings Debate: Championship Week
The Divisional round of the NFL playoffs didn’t disappoint, unless you’re a Saints, Texans, Broncos or Packers fan. San Francisco-New Orleans proved to be an all-time classic and just the kind of thrilling game we needed on Saturday since Denver-New England ended up being far less competitive than anybody expected. That the Texans-Ravens game was in doubt later than the Giants-Packers matchup has to be considered mildly surprising given that Green Bay was being discussed as a potentially undefeated team as late as Thanksgiving.
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