The cover tournaments and voting campaigns have been a huge achievement for EA Sports. It gets the game in the news escalating awareness more than a much bigger span of time than a basic cover announcement whilst engaging fans at an early date.

For Madden NFL 13 the cover tournament is becoming blown up even larger. 64 players will be eligible – two players from every team will face off in the entry round with the winner moving on to fill out the bracket of 32. The announcement of what players are eligible will come on March 7th.

What players do you hope are included from your preferred team? Leave your thoughts in the comments on who you’d like to see involved and who will be the favorites in the tournament!

Even though there is tiny to go on at this juncture regarding the extent to which it will ultimately develop a tweet from Donny Moore has revealed that ratings for offensive lineman will be getting worked on for Madden NFL 13. 1 of the gameplay interns is Clint Oldenburg, a former NFL and UFL offensive lineman, who apparently will be taking on the activity of producing lineman ratings far more meaningful and better reflective of their correct impact and influence. That’ll possibly need a revamp rather than just adjusting ratings beneath the present program.

This could quantity to a substantial enhancement to gameplay as the action in the trenches has been somewhat neglected over the years. Some would argue that ratings have meant totally nothing for offensive lineman – and regardless of whether or not the case or not it’s been obvious that there was small to no differentiation amongst them whether or not in performance or style. Either the offensive lineman would get beat terribly or they would hold their ground and either they would miss an assignment or they wouldn’t.

At the quite least it’s encouraging to hear that offensive lineman ratings are going to be addressed in some manner but regardless of whether that is ultimately seen by way of totally and successfully will been open to interpretation down the line.

The reside Madden Bowl broadcast last year was widely ridiculed and rightfully so (see my assessment). It was an unmitigated disaster. Not only was the programming dull – primarily filler with very tiny footage of the athletes actually playing Madden – but obscene messages had been on complete display throughout the evening.

EA and ESPN will hopefully be far better ready and give much more related content material for Madden Bowl XVIII which takes place in Indianapolis on Thursday. Coverage begins at 9ET/6PT on ESPN3 – which can be accessed by means of the Xbox Live app (which has confirmed to be exceptional) or on the internet.

Once once more teams of 3 will compete in On-line Team Play mode. That tends to make it feasible to involve a lot more athletes and celebrities but in turn has taken some of the personality out of the competition even though Team Play was more relevant final year as a new function than with Madden NFL 12. Grouping in this manner also means fewer total games which is portion of what produced the earlier Madden Bowl rely so a lot on unrelated fluff pieces and interviews.

Will you be tuning in to Madden Bowl XVIII on Thursday night – or do you have no interest or lost it right after final year’s debacle?

EA Sports has announced there will be no weblog released at halftime of this year’s Super Bowl for Madden NFL 13. For the prior 3 years the organization has taken the chance to announce some base attributes or clarify the general direction of the upcoming title at that time. Typically the blogs have been directed to the much more hardcore crowd that would truly be paying attention to Madden news in February, and although they didn’t quantity to “big” news that advertising definitely wanted to hold for later, they had been nonetheless of worth especially given they created Madden the only sports game to release any sort of information that early. 

Portion of the decision to scrap an early blog could be associated to the inability to materialize a single of the two capabilities announced at that time final year. “Tuner” updates getting added to Madden NFL 12 had been touted as getting a substantial development – but were by no means spoken of once more and the organization has refused to comment on what happened to that feature.

A lot more likely even though it has to do with the new development team composition and leadership. The guys who truly pushed for community engagement and early information, like the unprecedented Super Bowl blog, are now gone. The new regime has taken more than. Post-release assistance in the way of patches for Madden 12 is apparently full after just the one particular feedback-based patch and presumably for the identical cause – dev team focus has turned to Madden NFL 13.

It is disappointing news but not necessarily a poor sign for what’s to come just a change in the way items are getting handled. For a distinct angle of insight into the Madden NFL development approach check out this write-up from Grantland that went out earlier this week.

Final week ratings handler Donny Moore raised the concept of giving out the elusive 100 overall rating in Madden NFL 12 and the three main MVP candidates were cited as getting on the cusp of such an honor. Following the divisional round of the playoffs naturally perceptions of Aaron Rodgers, Drew Brees, and Tom Brady will have somewhat shifted. Only Brady moved on to the Conference Championship and did so in record-breaking fashion.

Aaron Rodgers vs Giants (Loss)
26-46-264, 2TD-1INT, Total QBR 66.9
Just didn’t appear as sharp as he did throughout the season, and had a lost fumble as well on what might have been the largest play of the game, but his receivers also dropped 8 passes. Even if he wins the MVP after a 15-1 season it ends with huge disappointment.

Drew Brees vs 49ers (Loss)
40-63-462, 4TD-2INT, Total QBR 62.
The two picks hurt but it was the rest of the team that ultimately let Brees down – that integrated 3 lost fumbles and a defense that gave the game away by allowing dramatic drives led by Alex Smith. Brees at least had the team in position to win twice late in the game.

Tom Brady vs Broncos (Win)
26-34-363, 6TD-1INT, Total QBR 95.1
Set an NFL Playoff record with five TD passes in a single half. He even got in a 48 yard punt that was downed at the ten yard line! Was able to roll more than what was arguably the easiest opponent in the round which may well present some reason for hesitation.

Who do you feel, if any, deserve the 100 overall rating by the time the final roster update comes about? Vote in the poll below and feel free of charge to leave any thoughts in the comments!

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There were some huge performances turned in for NFL Divisional Playoff Weekend as nicely as a quantity of important letdowns that will be reflected in the upcoming Madden NFL 12 roster update. The Conference Championships next Sunday will pit the Baltimore Ravens at New England Patriots (-9) at 3ET and New York Giants @ San Francisco 49ers (-three) at 630ET.

The teams advancing to the Conference Championship games are confident to be the primary benefactors of the subsequent roster update. The trio of Smiths (Alex, Aldon, Justin), Vernon Davis, Rob Gronkowski, Tom Brady, and Hakeem Nicks are just a handful of of the names that stood out in the Divisional round of the playoffs.

As usually leave your thoughts in the comments on what players are deserving of ratings increases or decreases as well as predictions on who will be headed to the Super Bowl!

The most recent roster update for Madden NFL 12 was the most significant to date in terms of changes being made to player ‘traits’. Over the course of the season only six moves had been made to the new system meant to help differentiate players beyond just their ratings. The post-week 12 update added three more – two of which are particularly topical given recent events.

Having set up as a likelihood over the last few weeks – discussion on the possibility had been ongoing – Tim Tebow earned the ‘clutch’ designation. Even his detractors would admit he steps up in high pressure moments and that is exactly what the trait is meant to represent. Tebow’s 77 overall rating right now may actually be a bit high considering his performance in the first three quarters of games. What ‘clutch’ though is intended to do is boost a player’s ratings in late-game or high pressure situations and that is where he has delivered.

In the week 12 game against the Patriots it was DeSean Jackson dropping multiple passes, and that being spotlighted heavily due to the discontent over his current contract situation, that led to him getting one of the few traits that would be considered a negative. Jackson received the “drops open passes” trait and seems to be spiraling down along with the Eagles. Neither bothered to show up for the week 13 Thursday night game.

Although it may have been a surprise as no one has really been talking about the Bucs disappointing season and the apparent regression of Josh Freeman but he has lost the ‘clutch’ trait that he entered the season with. In games that are within a TD in the fourth quarter Freeman’s QB rating drops down to 53.3 with no TDs and two INTs. He was in shaky standing already but the week 12 game against the Titans did him in – down only three points he threw a pick with just over two minutes remaining and then fumbled on fourth down on the final drive with under a minute left when in striking distance of a victory.