[Spartan Warrior]

For some legendary players there are Madden Ultimate Team Cards that you can look at the ratings for. There are quite a few: Peyton Manning, Barry Sanders, Marshall Faulk, ect.

For guys without cards, the best process is probably to watch some clips and read some stuff and try to find a similar player in the current NFL.

Lamonica had a cannon arm. Loved to throw the long ball (nearly 15 yards per completion for his career). Doesn't appear to have been much of a runner based on his stats, so low attributes for his running ability.

For a modern day comparison...Matthew Stafford and Jay Cutler are my go-tos for cannon armed gunslingers. Lamonica was better than those guys though, he was an AFL MVP and Pro Bowler.

Ever play All Pro Football 2K8? They rated players as Gold, Silver, or Bronze and gave them attributes. I sort of think about creating legends that way. Lamonica is a Silver, a really good player who wasn't quite Hall of Fame worthy. Abilities? Cannon arm, deep ball accuracy. Negatives? Forces passes, not super accurate on shorter passes.

So I'd go high arm strength and deep accuracy, lower awareness and short accuracy. Definitely set his tendency to "Aggressive." Shouldn't run, doesn't throw the ball away.

So that's my process: Watch some clips and read a little, try to think of a similar player, look at that player's ratings for inspiration, put the player in an historical tier, then think about their relative strengths and weaknesses. And in the end, you just sort of guess. It isn't a science and people aren't necessarily going to agree.