The EA Sports Madden Football franchise does the most amazing thing in the world every year around this time. Every year, they produce the same exact video game that they produced the year before with some new players, that you are perfectly capable of adding yourself to an older version if you want, and somehow they manage to make you buy it for $60. How is that possible?
It's not that I'm insulting the Madden faithful out there. Every year I swear to myself that I won't spend the money on the latest version of Madden when it comes out and every year I still find myself walking into a video game store and every year I walk out of that store with a copy of the latest Madden game.
What makes it worse is that usually, the Madden programers don't give my favorite team, the Bengals, any props. I understand that they usually don't deserve any, but it would still be nice to see some players with 100 ratings. Well one Bengals player has a chance of getting a 100 rating this year: Rey Maualuga in the "Hit Power" category.
Everyone on this list hits hard, obviously, but guys like Willis and Lewis, I think of more as guys who run a defense and use speed and anticipation to make plays all over the field. Matthews, I think of more as a guy who chases down quarterbacks. When I think of James Harrison, I think of violence and destruction. I wouldn't be opposed to pushing his hit power rating up to the 145 range.
On Monday, fans will be able to vote on which NFL players get a rating of 100 on ESPN.com. So if you want to play Madden '12 and rain down destruction in the form of powerful hits all over the Steelers and Ravens from Rey Maualuga in the virtual world that the magicians at EA Sports have designed for us, then make sure you vote.