Madden ratings season is here, and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers roster has officially been rated. With an overall team rating of 86, Tampa Bay has earned the respect of its Madden graders. That doesn't leave the team without some quite weird ratings. Here are some of the weirdest, and why the 2025 Madden ratings just do not make a whole lot of sense.
Weird rating #1: Mike Evans (93) rated eight points higher than Chris Godwin (85)
Madden might be forgetting that it was Godwin, not Evans, who was leading the NFL in receiving yards before going down with a season-ending injury in Week 7. In fact, there is an argument to be made that since 2019, Godwin has been the Buccaneers' best receiver when healthy.
From 2019-2024, Godwin has averaged 74.7 yards-per-game and has a 73% catch percentage. Evans, meanwhile, has averaged 72.3 yards-per-game with a 61.8% catch percentage. Godwin's 486 receptions over the past 6 seasons ranks ahead of Evans, who has caught 441 passes in the same timeframe.
Of course, Evans has over double the touchdowns (65 to 31), but with the rest of their stats almost equal across the board, it feels like their Madden ratings should be much closer.
Weird rating #2: Bucky Irving (87) misses the 90 club and not given an X-factor
Perhaps we're overrating the second-year back, but it feels like Irving's rating of 87 is too low for him. Last year, he went for 1,514 yards from scrimmage and ran for eight touchdowns. His lowest rating was his strength, which was rated at just 65. If not for that, he probably could have cracked 90.
Weird rating #3: Baker Mayfield gets a 98 toughness rating but a 69 strength rating
Mayfield's overall rating of 85 seems fairly accurate, but the weirdness comes in his rating breakdown. The Tampa Bay Quarterback has a toughness rating of 98, one of the highest in the league. Apparently, Madden believes Mayfield is one of the toughest players in the NFL. Maybe it's because he spent most of the 2022 season playing through injury on the Browns. However, his strength rating of 69 was among his lowest scores across the board.
It feels like strength and toughness should be more correlated than that, but Mayfield is an enigma. While he may not be the strongest player in the league, he is certainly among the toughest, which gives him an advantage.
Weird rating #4: Sterling Shepard rated at 73
This feels like a generous score for Shepard, who is years removed from being a productive receiver at the NFL level. The former second-round pick for the Giants has averaged just 227 yards per season over the past four years. While he did have a decent finish to the 2024 season in Tampa Bay, he's 32 and might not even make the active roster. All things considered, he's lucky to have a rating of 73.