Madden NFL 13 Cover Voting Process Has Started, Choose From 64 Players Down to 32

[Steve_OS]

EA SPORTS™ and ESPN announced today the return of the award-winning Madden NFL Cover Vote campaign, where fans can cast their vote for the next athlete to grace the cover of one of the highest-selling videogame franchises in North America. Last year, nearly 13 million votes were cast through ESPNSportsNation.com and ESPN mobile in both companies’ most successful cross-platform activation. Tenth-seeded Cleveland Browns running back, Peyton Hillis, trucked through the six week competition all the way to the ultimate end zone – the Madden NFL 12 cover.

This year’s competition will incorporate more athletes and more chances to vote as the field has been expanded to 64 NFL players, putting even more control in the hands of the fans. Beginning today through March 21, fans can visit the SportsNation Facebook page to choose among the 64 candidates in a play-in round (each matchup features two players from the same NFL team) to advance to the official 32-player, seeded tournament. The winners of the play-in round will be unveiled with the official seeded, 32-player bracket on March 21 on ESPN’s “Madden Cover Vote Special” from 5-6p.m. EST. To ensure their favorite player advances to the next round, fans are encouraged to vote daily and tweet their picks using #MyMaddenCoverVote on Twitter. Every Wednesday between March 21 and April 25, fans can tune into SportsNation on ESPN2 at 5p.m. EST to check out the latest Madden NFL 13 Cover Vote standings.

In addition to the SportsNation Facebook page, fans will be able to vote in the play-in round via the open Web through widgets embedded on blogs, websites and more. Each widget features an individual match-up for each of the 32 total teams in the league. For the cover vote from March 21-April 25, all voting must be cast at ESPN.com/MaddenVote.

To vote for your favorite Madden NFL 13 cover athlete, click here. The full press release, can be seen here.

[BurghFan]

at the 2 choices for the Raiders being Janikowski and Lechler. Yeah, let's get a kicker/punter on the cover of Madden 13.

[Grits_N_Gravy_23]

I hope Eli Manning gets the cover.... and the curse that comes with it. haha.

[Senator Palmer]

I don't know how these candidate were selected, but on the Madden 13 site, the case made for some of the more questionable ones put a smile on my face.

Here's the case for Blaine Gabbert:

Quote:

To hear the talking heads tell it, you’d think Blaine Gabbert was the worst quarterback in the NFL last season. After being given the starting job three games into his rookie season, it’s true Gabbert was underwhelming at first and then regressed from there. His dozen TD passes were undermined by the fact that he didn’t even sniff a 250 yard passing game in 14 starts and the 14 (!) fumbles he offered defenses could’ve been crushing if opponents could have recovered more than 5 of them. The fact that Jacksonville’s original plan of having him sit behind David Garrard for a season was suddenly scrapped midway through an already abbreviated preseason was completely lost on all football chatterers by the time he faced Baltimore on Monday Night Football in Week 7 and threw for 93 yards. The Indianapolis and Houston defenses rang him up for 12 total sacks last season and will surely be better prepared for Gabbert in 2012. The Madden NFL Quarterback 70 OVR 54 AWR 88 THP 76 THA 85 TAS High Motor Trait After a rough rookie season it’s going to be difficult to boost Blaine Gabbert’s awareness enough to really affect his low OVR rating. The main critique against the guy is that he regressed as the season went on and wouldn’t read his progressions and trust his offense. The best way to use Gabbert in Madden NFL is to have him throw to Maurice Jones-Drew as many times as possible and then let MJD do something amazing. His short accuracy is perfect for that gameplan. Gabbert’s 65 carry rating is super high considering his troubles hanging onto the ball in real life. That number will surely go down once Madden NFL 13 gets here. His low awareness and weak passing accuracy beyond 15 yards make a guy like Gabbert a turnover factory in Madden NFL and thus the Jaguars are an unpopular team for head to head play. Case for the Cover: With the kind of season he had and the popularity of Maurice Jones-Drew staring him in the face, Gabbert might need to start giving away free money and ice cream right now if he wants a chance to advance in the Madden NFL 13 Cover Vote.

[misterkrabz]

I didn't see a button where I could vote for a new development team....are they gonna have that poll?

[jyoung]

I hope SEBAS runs the table.

We need a kicker on the cover.

[kjcheezhead]

Let's forget the vote. This is your cover shot...



This year's tagline is "Praying we got it right this time."

The cool part is that the Madden curse would already be in effect the moment Tebow takes the field.

[jWILL253]

The Raiders have their punter and their kicker for cover candidates. LMAO, fail...