As promised I would break down where I thought each one of our draft picks were going to stack up in the 2021 Madden ratings. Joe Burrow is so important to our team that I decided to do a deep dive on him first. To do this I compared Andrew Luck’s rookie ratings and Kyler Murray’s. I chose these two because Burrow is most compared to Luck coming out of college and Murray was last year’s overall #1 pick so if Madden changed how they rate QBs it could be reflected. Scientific AF my friends. So let’s look at it:
| Acceleration | Strength | Agility | |
| Andrew Luck | 88 | 59 | 84 |
| Kyler Murray | 92 | 51 | 90 |
| Joe Burrow | 88 | 55 | 86 |
Burrow is no slouch running and is very comparative to Luck’s athleticism. I think he is a little faster and quick than Luck but certainly not a scrambler like Murray. I think Burrow is probably weaker than Luck but stronger than Murray based on body composite but I can’t be certain 1) if this # actually matters and 2) how EA Sports comes up with it. Burrow is certainly agile and in the pocket he has great escapability. More so than Luck but since Murray is so quick he has the edge on agility.
| Throw Power | Throw Accuracy | Accuracy Short | Accuracy Mid | Accuracy Deep | |
| Andrew Luck | 92 | 88 | 93 | 90 | 81 |
| Kyler Murray | 89 | 81 | 82 | 78 | 82 |
| Joe Burrow | 88 | 90 | 94 | 93 | 84 |
This is where the rubber meets the road people. Burrow has been knocked for small hands which impacts his throw power but he can still spin it. If you missed my story on Burrow’s accuracy and arm strength please read it here, it’s really a great article (#behumble). He gets a knock on power but makes up for it on accuracy. The dude is a sniper and his scores reflect that. Since Madden 2013 also had overall accuracy and 2020 did not I just took the average of accuracy numbers for Murray. I then took the average for Burrow to get to 90. Deep accuracy hurts his average a lot but I figured EA would knock him because of arm strength.
| Play Action | Throw on Run | Injury | Stamina | Toughness | |
| Andrew Luck | 74 | 88 | 98 | 97 | 69 |
| Kyler Murray | 71 | 87 | 88 | 91 | 84 |
| Joe Burrow | 74 | 90 | 97 | 97 | 84 |
Burrow, like all college players, operated in the shotgun a lot so play action is a fuzzy number for everyone. He excels at throwing outside of the pocket and his college numbers reflect that. He is going to need to do that often in the first season which makes him an ideal Bengals QB. Burrow does not have an injury history, he is the ultimate competitor and is tough as nails. He grades high marks on all of those and I couldn’t argue them down.
| Overall | |
| Andrew Luck | 84 |
| Kyler Murray | 73 |
| Joe Burrow | 85 |
And now the most important number to fans. I have Burrow at an 85 because he is an incredible mix of talent. When I really started researching this guy the comparisons were to Joe Montana who I regard as the second best QB of all time now. His recent comparison is Andrew Luck so he had to hover around Luck’s overall rating. I think the accuracy is what distances him from Luck and Murray. After seeing Murray play in his first season 73 seems really low to me, I think the kid is going to ball out. I don’t think EA is going to sleep on Burrow the same way which is why this kid is special. I hope that I am right.