To see the entire update, click here.

For the Chiefs, there was some really good news on defense and a few decreases on offense. Just like in real life.

Here are the Chiefs’ changes:

-Barry Richardson drops from a 75 to 72. Still overrated. He should be in the 60-64 range at best.

-EA has finally figured out that Derrick Johnson is good but he is still too low. Should be at 94.

-Hali creeps up to 94. That is pretty good but I think he is more a 96-97 kind of guy. He’s one of the best.

-Palko sucks in this game and is literally impossible to play with. Thankfully Orton is on the roster and I highly recommend using him instead. He makes the offense playable.

See the entire update after the jump.

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You can see the full roster update here.

As for the Chiefs, it was a mixed bag but some of the changes should make playing as KC a little bit more bearable.

The most important change here is obviously the addition of Orton. Palko is so bad in the game that playing as the Chiefs is nearly impossible.

The decreases, in my opinion, are trivial but fair. The increases are good. Gordon and Bailey both earned boosts, as did Arenas. I’m also quite happy they have noticed Houston’s improved play. I think 74 is right where he is at right now. Another strong outing this week could boost him even more.

The full roster update is after the jump.

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The folks at EA Sports have released the latest roster update for Madden NFL 12.

You can see the full Madden NFL 12 roster update details here.

As for the Kansas City Chiefs, there were a lot of ratings bumps for individual players following the team’s convincing win over the Oakland Raiders on the road last week.

Jackie Battle continues to rise, going from a 70 to a 72 overall. Kendrick Lewis inched closer to the 80s going from 75 to 78. Glenn Dorsey jumped a point from 81 to 82. Brandon Carr also jumped from 81 to 82, and his buddy Brandon Flowers jumped two points from 90 to 92. Punter Dustin Colquitt moved up from 88 to 89. Even Barry Richardson got a boost, moving from 78 to 79. He is vastly overrated in my opinion. He’s a 73 at best.

The only decrease went to Dexter McCluster, who dropped from 74 to 73.

My biggest complaint is that ILB Derrick Johnson only jumped from 86 to 87 overall. I’ve thought DJ was ranked low all season and my opinion certainly hasn’t changed after his game in Oakland. I think Johnson is a solid 90.

Full details are after the jump.

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The Madden NFL 12 roster update for week six has been released.

You can see the full roster updated details here.

As for the Chiefs, you would think the team would see some nice boosts after their comeback performance against the Colts. Unfortunately, there are some ups and downs here.

These seem a little weird. McCluster didn’t really need to be decreased in my opinion. Flowers deserved to be knocked down a peg. Wiegmann, however, played really well Sunday. Not sure why he got dropped.

As for the positive changes, I like that Battle got up into the 70s. He is still dreadfully low but it is going to take more than one game before he is respectable. Hopefully they upped his trucking, which should be really high considering he got 76 yards after contact last week.

Breaston should be in the low 80s in my opinion. He is a very solid #2 right now. As for Bowe, it is time they start recognizing him as one of the game’s best receivers. I think mid-90s would be more suitable. Cassel and Asamoah are just right I think.

Full changes after the jump.

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Hurricane Irene slammed into New York City this weekend. While the damage wasn’t as bad as some ratings hungry Whether Channel executives would have you believe, the rain and wind were crappy enough to keep me inside playing Madden NFL 12.

Thus I will give you my rambling first impressions of the game. I’m a casual gamer so I am just going to talk about what stood out to me and what I think most people will be interested to hear. As with all reviews, your mileage may very. Each person will probably have a different impression of the various aspects of the game. These are mine.

From a game-play perspective, Madden 12 is a big upgrade over Madden 11. While there is a lot here that is familiar, there is enough that is different that it doesn’t feel like a retread of last year’s entry.

For starters the game looks a lot different. The broadcast style has changed, as has the lighting. The Madden team also added 3-D grass whish really looks great. Sometimes a player’s foot will sing into it a little too far but on the whole it is really cool to see the individual blades of grass in the cut scenes.

The new tackling animations, which you probably got a taste of in the demo, are fantastic. They feel a lot more realistic than anything we’ve seen in previous Maddens. The players appear to have weight to them and balance seems to matter. Suction tackles are also gone for the most part which might be the biggest improvement in the entire game. It is also nice to see that when a ball-carrier gets engaged with one tackler and another tackler comes flying in, they actually make an impact and change the direction the ball carrier falls. In previous editions the extra tackler would just run by or fall down.

The defense is also much smarter in Madden 12. I am sure I will start finding money plays the more I play but so far, playing offense is much more difficult. In the past, any time I got in 3^rd and long situations, I could just throw a deep pass over the middle and pick up the first down. In Madden 12, just like in the real NFL, 3^rd and long is a really bad situation to find yourself in. The middle is taken away so all those old money plays won’t work. If you try to force your pass into coverage, you’ll get picked off.

Another great addition is that defensive players will break off their routes if it is appropriate. If a corner is in man coverage on your receiver and you check down to your receiver in the flat, he’ll break off his route to break up the play. He might get there in time and he might not but the days of abusing the flats for a quick and easy first down appear to be over.

More after the jump.

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While many draft experts believed that Houston was talented enough to be taken in the first round, he slipped into the third in the actual draft, thanks mostly to his testing positive for marijuana use at the combine.

Whatever. I’m high right now.

Just kidding.

Maybe.

Anyway, Houston’s real life slip up cost him a lot of money. It now appears that it also cost his electronic self a decent out of the box Madden rating. Houston did not make the top ten at his position . Since #10, Bruce Carter pulled in a rating of 67, that means Houston will be lower than that. Ouch.

Full top ten after the jump.

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Yesterday we brought you the Madden NFL 12 ratings for top ten rookies.

Unfortunately, Kansas City Chiefs first round pick, WR Jonathan Baldwin, did not make the cut. This is not surprising considering he was taken with the 26th pick in the first round.

Today, the Madden team released the top ten rookie WR rankings and Baldwin checked in as the third best rookie WR in the game with a rating of 71.

The rest of the top ten WR’s are after the jump.

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Jonathan Baldwin is not a top ten rookie in Madden NFL 12.

I know a lot of you are big Madden players so I wanted to bring you the top ten rookies by rating. These will be the base ratings out of the box.

And no, Jonathan Baldwin is not on the list:

10. Robert Quinn – DE – STL – 78 OVR

9. Julio Jones – WR, ATL – 78 OVR

8. Mark Ingram – RB – NO – 79 OVR

7. Mike Pouncey – OL – MIA – 79 OVR

6. Von Miller – OLB – DEN – 79 OVR

5. J.J. Watt – DE – HOU – 80 OVR

4. A.J. Green – WR – CIN – 80 OVR

3. Prince Amukamara – CB – NYG – 81 OVR

2. Marcell Dareus – DE – BUF – 82 OVR

1. Patrick Peterson – CB – ARZ – 82 OVR

Based on this list, Baldwin’s raring, although still a mystery, will be 77 or lower.

I can live with that. Just like in the real NFL, most of these guys have a lot to prove and should start with there ratings pretty low. Remember, Madden redid their ratings so fewer players are rated as highly.

If I had to hazard a guess, I’d say Baldwin will be in the 75-77 range. This is a decent starting point and should he make an impact early, his rating will rise into the 80′s pretty quickly.

One thing is for sure, after last season, Dwayne Bowe is sure to have a solid out of the box rating.

What do you think Addicts? What will Jonathan Baldwin’s Madden rating be out of the box and what will it be at the end of the season?

A clip is circulating of the Chiefs’ new entrance from the game. Check it out.

Thanks to Arrowhead Pride for the tip on this.

Some footage of the game has emerged online and if features our beloved Chiefs.

And they look pretty good.

How do you think the game looks?

The Madden NFL 12 cover featuring Cleveland Browns RB Peyton Hillis has been revealed. This is obviously big news because electronic football may be the only football (other than college) that we get this fall.

I think this is a pretty cool looking cover.

What do you guys think? I know we have a lot of readers who enjoy Madden. Will you be buying Madden 12? More importantly, what is your system/gamer tag?

Most likely due to the NFL lockout, EA Sports has pushed the released of Madden NFL 12 back three weeks from August 9th to August 30th.

Alright, NFL, this means war.

You can take away free agency and put a damper on the draft with your squabbling over billions of dollars but when you take away my hours of sitting around in my boxers eating Cheetos, drinking malt liquor and whipping the crap out of the Raiders on Madden, you’ve gone too far.

That is why, as of now, I am going to begin planning a three week long pickup football game that will begin on August 9th.

On Rodger Goodell’s lawn.

Oh we’re gonna do it Goodell. Just test us.

Word comes from Pro Football Talk.

Check it out. Good read.

Clipped from: sports.espn.go.com (share this clip)

Jamaal Charles kicks ass in real life and in Madden

EA Sports is doing a NCAA style bracket tournament to decide on the new cover athlete for it’s popular football franchise Madden NFL Football.

Kansas City Chiefs RB Jamaal Charles is one of the finalists and drew popular Denver Broncos QB Tim Tebow in the first round of the tournament.

When the news broke, I commented that it was a big unfair that Tebow was a finalist, given that he has accomplished very little in the NFL. I argued that Champ Bailey would be a much better candidate for the Broncos. I also gave warning to Chiefs fans that a Charles victory could mean the dreaded Madden Curse could, for the first time, come to Kansas City.

As of now, it looks like Charles is going to advance. ESPN.com just released an article to give an update on the first round Madden voting. According to the article, Charles is kicking Tebow’s rear.

Another shocker is the fact that Tim Tebow, the man who was leading the NFL in jersey sales as a rookie, is losing to Jamaal Charles of the Chiefs, 64.9% to 35%. What happened to all of those Tebow fans out there? Are we seeing a fan backlash against the quarterback? Should EA Sports have went with Brandon Lloyd for the cover instead?

More after the jump.

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Two years ago, fans of the Kansas City Chiefs cringed when QB Matt Cassel was a finalist to make the cover of Madden NFL 10. Thankfully, Cassel avoided landing on the cover of the world’s most popular only NFL football video game, escaping the dreaded Madden curse.

Then again, considering how the 2009 Kansas City Chiefs’ season went, perhaps Cassel caught a touch of the curse simply for being nominated. It is a horror just to be nominated after all.

Two years later, the Chiefs are developing starts and now RB Jamaal Charles is a candidate to grace the cover of Madden. This year, EA Sports is doing a NCAA Tournament style voting process to select a winner. Fans will vote in a series of one on one matchups until only one player remains. The players are even broken up into seeds, just like in the real NCAA Tournament. Charles is currently ranked as a 6 seed in his region and he will be going up against none other than…

Tim Tebow of the Denver Broncos.

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