Getty Colin Kaepernick
On Monday, EA announced it was bringing NFL free agent Colin Kaepernick back into the game. With the game’s latest update, Kaepernick is now an 81-overall rated player and available to be signed to any team.
Because of his overall rating, he is a starting-level player and would make for a better option at quarterback than many of the players in the QB1 slot in the game, and that includes the New England Patriots‘ Cam Newton, who is only rated a 78 overall.
Colin Kaepernick Rated Higher Than Cam Newton
Madden 21Cam Newton
Kaepernick’s rating can fluctuate between and 81 and an 80 depending on the offensive system you place him in within the game, but even at that, he still rates higher than Newton.
There are many ways to look at this comparison. First of all, if EA was going to go through the effort to bring Kaepernick into the game, it had to at least give him a solid rating. Anything in the low 70s or lower would have been more of an insult than an honor. The publisher has already gone down that road with him when someone from the organization egregiously scrubbed his name from one of the songs on the soundtrack back in 2016.
Because of that, the 81-overall rating is understandable. If anything, this further indicts the low rating Newton received. As a 31-year-old, former NFL MVP, it’s hard to imagine Newton could only muster a 78-overall rating. That’s just one point higher than the Cincinnati Bengals’ Joe Burrow, who hasn’t thrown one pass in the NFL.
Quite honestly, both Newton’s rating should be closer to where Kaepernick’s is, if not equal.
Cam Newton Has a Chance to See an Upgrade
If things go as the Patriots and Newton plan, the quarterback will see a boost to his rating by the first update of the game’s roster. EA has staff who are called Madden Ratings Adjustors, and their job is to monitor player performance throughout the year, and to implement increases and decreases for in-game ratings where appropriate.
The only way Kaepernick’s ratings will change is if an NFL team signs him. Quite honestly, despite some rhetoric that suggested otherwise, there doesn’t appear to be any serious interest in signing Kaepernick. The NFL is largely trying to repair their image as it relates to race relations, and those stories–as well as this move to add Kaepernick to the game–is a bit of damage control. EA doesn’t move without the NFL giving the OK as it pertains to Madden, and you can believe that was the case in this instance as well.