The Iowa football team had four players selected in the 2019 NFL Draft, and now we know what their Madden 2020 ratings are going to be.
It’s bizarre how important Madden ratings are to fans and players alike. It’s as if the Madden ratings actually matter in the grand scheme of things. I certainly fall victim to this. Even when going through this year’s rookie ratings that were just released, I found myself thinking “that’s not true” or “you underrated him”, but there wasn’t as much of that with the Iowa football team’s draft class.
In fact, they were pretty reasonable.
Here is the breakdown of the four Iowa football players selected in the 2019 NFL Draft in regards to their Madden ratings.
TJ Hockenson
Hockenson checks in as the 6th best player in the entire class from a Madden perspective. He is 77 overall and with his jump rating of 89 being his best mark. He boasts an 83 rating in catching and an 87 rating in acceleration. I agree with almost everything besides his run blocking grade of 64, which is complete garbage to me.
Noah Fant
Fant is the 13th best player in the entire class, and he comes in 3 overall points lower then Hockenson at 74 overall. As expected, his physical traits are superb as he has 89 speed, 91 acceleration, and agility. The former Iowa football player’s catch rating is a solid 78 and his jump rating is a ridiculously good 93. Oddly enough, despite concerns from mainstream media about his blocking, he comes in with a 57 rating in blocking just 7 points lower than Hockenson.
Anthony Nelson
There is nothing that stood out about Anthony Nelson’s rating beside the fact that he is listed as a LOLB. I know Tampa is working him at a few different spots, but to straight-up classify him as a LOLB was a little bit shocking to me. Physically speaking, Nelson’s game is pretty solid in Madden. He has 78 speed, 87 acceleration, 85 jumping, and 80 power. His block shedding is 74, which is about what I would expect and his overall rating is 66. Again, no major surprises here.
Amani Hooker
This might be me being biased, but I expected Hooker’s overall to be 70 for some reason. Yet, the final draft pick in the 2019 NFL Draft from the Iowa football program comes in with a 68 overall rating.
Hooker’s physical traits were on par with an 88 speed, 90 agility, and 88 acceleration, but I didn’t agree with his zone coverage rating of 69. The Iowa football team plays zone pretty regularly and Hooker was fantastic in the scheme. Outside of that, his 76 power and 70 tackle rating were about as good as I could expect for a rookie safety.
Overall, not too many complaints from me on the Madden front. It’s tough for Madden to mess up the physical pieces as those are about as quantifiable of ratings as you can get.
Some of the other pieces, I feel like they just generically assigned ratings based on draft position and expectation. Hockenson is an elite-level blocker at the tight end position and Hooker is not that low in zone rating, but I am not the one who makes the rankings. Plus, when these guys outperform expectations, updates will be made to improve each of these ratings for these guys.