EA Sports Announces Cover Athletes for ‘Madden NFL 22’

The cover athletes for Madden NFL 22 have been revealed. On Thursday, EA Sports announced that Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes will grace the cover of the football video game. The company also revealed the official trailer and how fans can pre-order a copy. This comes after EA Sports teased the athletes with a commercial that featured two goats.

Madden NFL 22 unofficially kicks off the 2021 NFL season. But the developers of the game are hoping it earns better reviews than Madden NFL 21. One of the issues with last year’s game was franchise mode as it wasn’t as deep as it has been in the past.

“We talk a lot internally about our total fanbase and who’s playing what and how they play,” longtime Madden developer Seann Graddy said in an interview with US Gamer in August. We want to grow Madden. So you can probably see that some of the features we’ve been building has been widening the net of football fandom, with modes like Superstar KO and The Yard that we added this year. But we also don’t want to ignore what our core fans want, which is Franchise Mode, Face of the Franchise, Play Now. What I got from the ‘FixMaddenFranchise’ hashtag that was trending was that they felt like they were being ignored, and that they weren’t getting enough.”

Despite the issues with the Madden franchise, it’s one of the biggest video games in the world. It’s named after John Madden, former head coach of the Oakland Raiders and legendary NFL commentator. In an interview with ESPN, Madden talked about the early days of the game, which began in 1988.

“The first memories that I have were with Trip Hawkins – when he came to me and he wanted to do a computer game,” Madden said. “He impressed me by the fact that he graduated from Harvard and made up his own major, and the major was computer games. And I thought anyone who could use a computer in those days was a genius. You know, the word genius went with computer. And so, I said, I’ll give him a chance because I was looking for a type of computer thing that I could use for coaching.” Madden NFL 22 will be released on PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, Stadia, and PC on August 20.