EA Sports adding Bo Jackson to Madden, with a rating lower than Melvin Gordon and James Robinson

Congratulations, EA Sports. You wanted hate coverage and you’re getting hate coverage.

The company announced on Wednesday that legendary running back Bo Jackson will get a Madden NFL 22 cover over the holiday season. A version of Bo will be available in the game under the Ultimate Team, The Yard, Superstar KO modes. Players will automatically receive the running back between November 19 and January 14.

That’s all well and good, but where it gets weird is in what we get out of the Bo Jackson player. EA announced that Jackson will get an overall rating of 85. For comparison, Austin Ekeler and Chris Carson are both rated 85 overall and Melvin Gordon and James Robinson are rated 86 overall.

While no disrespect is intended for those four players, none of them is Bo Jackson. Before injury derailed his career, Jackson was one of the greatest athletes in modern sports history. More importantly for video game fans, he was an iconic figure in Tecmo Bowl who was unstoppable for any experienced player. And now, he’s an 85 and on par with some good but decidedly not all-world running backs.

We are writing about it, so I suppose EA Sports figured their job is done. Some would argue it’s a strong rating for a first-time addition, but c’mon, this is Bo!