Madden 22 ratings for Buccaneers a mixed bag of accuracy and lunacy

Every year EA Sports begins releasing ratings for teams like the Tampa Bay Buccaneers, and their individual players. All of this comes ahead of the game’s release and is a source of celebration and angst for many.

Patrick Mahomes, for example, is embarking on his third year as a 99 overall player in the popular football ‘simulation’ game. So Kansas City Chiefs fans are probably happy about that.

The Buccaneers as a team are rated at a 92 overall and are the top team in the game at launch, so Chiefs fans probably don’t like that any more than they enjoyed the 31-9 loss witnessed this past February.

Photo: @EAMaddenNFL / Twitter

Tom Brady clocks in as the top ‘veteran’ quarterback, a category Mahomes didn’t qualify for apparently. And Tampa Bay’s Lavonte David finally gets some outside love with a 93 overall rating, coming in as the game’s second highest-rated player at the position.

This is the point in our conversation where Bucs fans are going to turn sour as Devin White not only misses out on being in the 90s range for his overall rating, he isn’t even in the Top-10 of his position group.

Deion Jones of the Atlanta Falcons comes in tenth overall, and I think even Falcons fans would agree their team would trade Jones for White in a New York minute - I assume a Georgia minute is a tad slower.

In fact, this revelation was a point of hot conversation between James Yarcho and myself on Monday’s episode of the Locked On Bucs Podcast.

Not only do the Madden rating gurus disrespect White, but they also criminally underrate Indianapolis Colts’ linebacker Darius Leonard who should easily enter the 90 range, but instead comes in at 89 overall and sixth in the position group.

It’s not all bad though as the Bucs also have Mike Evans coming in with a 91 overall rating at launch. An added bit of good news comes in as we know the players can all give rise to their ratings as the season progresses.

Catch the entire conversation as Yarcho and I dive into other player ratings, including a summary of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers’ closely rated running back group.