Madden QB Ratings Have Been Released and They Are Terrible

It’s a slow time of year for football fans. Free agency cooled down in April, the draft has come and gone, and training camp has yet to start. Thus, in what has become a yearly tradition, we collectively argue about video game ratings to fill our football discussion quota. This year is no different.

On Monday, EA announced their ratings for the initial release of Madden 20. There are always going to be questionable choices when it comes to rating certain players, but this year’s QB ratings are especially notable. This is a list of the important names, and the full list can be found on EA’s website here. 

The top of the list is about what everyone expected. No arguments there. It’s the middle and bottom class that are raising some questions for me.

Mitch Trubisky at a 75 is pretty harsh, all things considered; yes, he was helped tremendously by Matt Nagy’s offensive IQ and has a long way to go, but Josh Allen is a 74! One of those guys led a team to the playoffs, and the other spent all season airmailing five-yard throws while his squad went 6-10. I don’t know how much higher Trubisky really should be ranked, but he’s definitely more than one point better than Allen.

Deshaun Watson at 82 is malpractice, plain and simple. Baker Mayfield is a solid QB for a second-year player, but better than Watson? I don’t think so.

Matthew Stafford at the same level as Marcus Mariota is laughable. Yeah, Stafford isn’t great and has all the signs of an empty stats guy, but he’s certainly a better quarterback than Mariota, whose best year saw him throw 26 TDs. That’s Stafford’s baseline.

Listen, I get it. The system is, always has been, and always will be imperfect. They’ll adjust the ratings weekly to accurately reflect play, etc. But for guys who make football games, these ratings raise questions about how many football games they actually watch.

Nothing gets the blood hot like video game ratings. Especially at this time of year.