The Madden NFL 15 player ratings are being released today, which means we get to act either indignant or smug about how the Tampa Bay Buccaneers are awesome/totally disrespected. Let's see which tone we'll have to use today!
*rolls dice*
And the result issssssss......Mike Evans gets a 78/100 rating from the people at EA Sports. He gets an 88 in speed, a 93 in jumping, 90 in spectacular catch, and 93 in release. That sounds about right, if I remember Madden ratings correctly from three years ago. Pretty good. Likely to be very good to elite with a few year's practice, and his size should make him better than his ratings alone. Good fun!
One downside: of the ratings of the 13 draft picks I saw, Evans' rating is the lowest. Well, tied for the lowest with Blake Bortles and Darqueze Dennard, and he's just the 12th-best rookie overall. That's a bit of a snubbing for the seventh overall pick in the draft, though not necessarily unrealistic: it may take Evans a while to adjust to the NFL after being asked to run only a handful of different routes from one position in college.
Still, y'know, it probably should be higher. Boo, EA, boo!
For more on Madden's ratings, SB Nation talked to EA's ratings czar Donny Moore.