Madden released its “Ultimate Team Ratings” for the first round rookies. Here is the rating for Buccaneers tight end O.J. Howard.
How many of you Buccaneers fans are gamers? I am sure many of you are nodding your heads “yes” as you read that question. It’s no surprise, as the rise of the video game industry has been meteoric. As of 2013, the Madden video game series, in and of itself, was a $4 billion industry, and that number is only climbing. The game has come a long way since its humble beginnings when the players were the size of our pinky fingers.
According to Statista, the retail revenue for video games in the first quarter of 2017 was approximately $2.6 billion. Project that out over the entire year and we are just over ten billion. That’s a lot of video games. Whoever thought you would someday turn on the television to watch Madden tournaments?
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So it comes as no surprise to see fan excitement when the new Madden ratings are released. Gamers love it because the game is about to be released, or will be released soon. Non-gamers love it because it means that football season is that much closer to kickoff.
See? Everybody wins when the ratings come out.
With that, we have good news to report, as ratings for the first round rookies have been made public. Keep in mind that these are not necessarily the official ratings. These are the “Madden’s Ultimate Team” ratings, which are preliminary and may change when they become official overall ratings for each player. But they are still interesting to take a look at.
The Pewter Report’s Trevor Sikkema posted the entire first round’s overall ratings. O.J. Howard received an 81. Remember that these are preliminary. Every pick from 17 to the end of the round was given an 81 overall rating. Many of these will change when the official rookie ratings are released.
Muthead released his full ratings. Some of the highlights include an 85 for speed, 92 for vertical threat (his highest mark), 81 in pass protection, and 89 for acceleration. The marks for speed and acceleration are really no surprise. If you just look at his times recorded at the NFL Combine in the dash and the cone drills, it becomes abundantly clear that Howard can fly.
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High praise for the young man from Alabama. It will be interesting to see how consistent the ratings are when the official ones are released.