John Madden will be the cover image of Madden 23

The cover of the Madden NFL 23 video game will pay special tribute to John Madden himself, the Hall of Fame coach who died on December 28, who will be on the cover of all three editions of this year’s game, which will be released in August .

It’s the first time in more than two decades that Madden will be the focal point of the cover, which has skewed toward actual athletes you can use in the football video game.

“We were thinking about this year’s game and who was going to be in it, it almost became a no-brainer,” Seann Graddy, executive producer of Madden NFL, told ESPN.

“I say that because we really wanted to celebrate the coach in the product this year and what he meant to us over the 30+ years that we’ve been using his name in our game.”

Madden was the last main cover person for the Madden 2000 edition of the game, which was released in 1999. He appeared on a small box in the next four editions of the game with his signature and the All-Madden logo next to the athlete from main cover before disappearing from the cover of Madden NFL 06, which featured Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb as its cover athlete.

EA then moved on to using athletes for the cover: Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and Tampa Bay Buccaneers quarterback Tom Brady shared it last year, until this season.

Graddy told ESPN that putting Madden back on the cover has only been discussed for this version of the game, but said “anything is possible, to be honest” about putting Madden on the cover in some way in the future. .

The cover for All-Madden, one of three covers, is reminiscent of the original John Madden, released on June 1, 1988. That cover featured a sandy-haired young Madden holding a soccer ball by blowing a hole through a X and O diagram on a blackboard with John Madden Football on top of the box.

The cover of the All-Madden issue shows a similar-looking young Madden holding a soccer ball through what appears to be a piece of paper filled with X’s and O’s. On the side of the cover, in white letters, is “Thank you , coach”.

Chuck Styles, a Philadelphia-based artist who also created exclusive trading cards for Topps in their Project70 release, as well as many works depicting NBA players, designed the cover for the All-Madden edition.

The other two covers, not created by Styles, feature Madden as a coach and announcer. The cover of the broadcast has Madden in a blue shirt and tie that appears to draw on a telestrator, which he was famous for in his career. The coach cover has Madden being lifted by his players after beating the Minnesota Vikings in Super Bowl XI.

“What we wanted everyone to take away with,” Graddy said. “It’s just that we’re celebrating all three phases of Coach Madden’s kind of legacy.”

Madden was immersed in the game from the start, from requiring it to go 11v11 on the field to handing over its old playbook to game developers to create more realism. As the game grew, so did the influence of it on the players. Many current NFL players say Madden was part of their upbringing – Lions defensive back Jeff Okudah told ESPN in 2020 that he learned football playing Madden, and that was always a point of pride for the NFL’s namesake. play.

“That gives you the satisfaction that you’re doing something worthwhile,” Madden told ESPN in a wide-ranging interview in 2021. “You and everyone involved are putting in the time, and it works and influences people not just to enjoy the game but also to be able to play it.

“It helps them become better players. And I think that’s true in high school, college, and the pros. There’s a real satisfaction you see when someone mentions it.”

Madden coached the Oakland Raiders from 1969 to 1978. When he retired as coach, reporting on the game annually was something he continued to do, “and one of the things I’m very proud of.”

While many of the gameplay features for this year’s Madden have not been announced, Graddy said the game’s opening experience will have two versions of Madden from the 1970s who will be recognizable training each other, one leading an All-NFC All-Madden and another that has an All-AFC All-Madden team inside the old Oakland Coliseum from the 1970s.

“It’s kind of a fun fantasy experience where it’s Coach Madden versus Coach Madden,” Graddy said. “With a callback of the All-Madden teams that he used to create and that we used to have in our game, a mix of legendary players and current players.

“Honestly, the whole idea of ​​why we wanted coach vs. coach is that we want coach to win.”

During that experience, Graddy said there will be lines spoken by Madden interspersed throughout the commentary about some of the players on the All-Madden rosters.

As part of the cover announcement, EA also announced that its $5 million donation to the John Madden Legacy Commitment to Education will be split with $2.5 million going to nonprofits to help support five years of programming in science, technology, engineering, arts, and math (STEAM) – College Track, Girls Who Code, Street Code Academy, and Mission Bit. The other $2.5 million will help create the EA Madden Scholarship, which will work with the United Negro College Fund for scholarships for students at 12 historically black colleges and universities.