Madden 21 Cover Athlete is Lamar Jackson, Confirmed Ahead of Game’s 2020 Release Date
The first details of the Madden 21 game have arrived and it’s as many people expected. The Baltimore Ravens’ Lamar Jackson will be the Madden 21 cover athlete after his NFL MVP campaign last season. He’ll now try to continue what he hopes is a streak of good luck starting by last year’s cover star and avoid that Madden curse.
Lamar Jackson confirms he is Madden 21 cover athlete
In our Madden 21 cover predictions, we fully believed Lamar Jackson was the no-brainer choice. On Tuesday (April 21), the big news was confirmed by Lamar Jackson on a Q&A session. The Baltimore Ravens tweeted out several video clips with LJ8 answering interview questions.
At one point he was talking about how Patrick Mahomes was on the Madden 20 cover and didn’t fall victim to the curse. Mahomes won MVP in the 2018-19 season and went on to win the Super Bowl with the Kansas City Chiefs.
Jackson said he’s not worried about the curse because of what Mahomes did. The interviewer then made sure to ask, “You are the cover of Madden 21?” and Jackson confirmed that yes, he will be.
In another answer, Lamar Jackson talked about what it means for him to be the Madden 21 cover athlete. He said, “it’s always been a dream of mine since I was a little kid since I started playing Madden.”
While Lamar Jackson being on the cover doesn’t come as a huge surprise for most fans of the game or the NFL, it may have surprised EA. They posted a tweet that suggested the Baltimore Ravens leaked the news ahead of schedule.
Jackson looking to continue Mahomes’ cover tradition
In the 2019-20 NFL season, Jackson set a single-season rushing yards record for quarterbacks, surpassing former cover star Michael Vick. EA’s Madden crew also made sure to recognize just how fast Jackson is by giving him the highest speed ever for a quarterback in their video game.
In addition, Jackson guided his team to the 2019 NFL Playoffs as the No. 1 overall seed. Unfortunately, they ran into an underrated Tennessee Titans team which featured star running back Derrick Henry, capable defense, and a super-smart head coach.
Even so, Jackson was easily a fan-favorite this season, with plenty of Madden 20 fans enlisting his services as the main man on their Ultimate Teams.
Previous Madden cover stars have included Tom Brady, Antonio Brown, Rob Gronkowski, and Odell Beckham Jr. That said, all eyes will be on Lamar Jackson for the 2020 NFL season, should things start as planned. LJ8 will look to continue the tradition of not being cursed that Madden 20 cover star Patrick Mahomes started last season.
Fans have already started posting their mock Madden 21 cover concepts online including the one below. We’d nominate this as a great option for the game’s front artwork but EA may have something else in mind already.
— TheLamb (@TheLambKiller) April 21, 2020
As far as the Madden 21 release date, we’re expecting it to launch in a similar timeframe as the last several editions. Madden 20 came out on August 2, 2019, while Madden 19 had a release date of August 10, 2018. The Madden 18 title arrived on August 22, 2017, though. So that gives a three-week timeframe for the potential Madden 21 release date.
Visit our Madden news page for more of the latest updates.