It’s July, which means that we’ll be disecting Madden 19’s rankings as they come out leading up to the game’s launch August 10, 2018. The rankings for rookie wide receivers was released and the San Francisco 49ers’ own Dante Pettis came in at number three behind D.J. Moore (No. 1, 77 OVR) and Calvin Ridley (No. 2, 77 OVR). Pettis’ own overall ranking is just one behind the above, coming in with a 76 ranking.
Here’s what EA Sports had to say about Pettis:
“Pettis and the other WRs mentioned so far are under the Deep Threat Archetype, so he carries similar scores in his ratings. At 90 Speed, he doesn’t carry the same breakaway potential as Moore or Ridley, but his hands are a nice tradeoff. An 85 Catching makes him the most dependable of this five. He can’t do anything too fancy with it once he catches it, without a ball carrying move above 90, but at least he can grab the pass if it’s within reach.”
With the way many Madden games go, I’d take hands over speed every time. I’m someone who would just like to nickel and dime away down the field with short catches and rarely take shots downfield. The fact Pettis is only a single point below the other two certainly is nice when you look at real life and where Pettis went in the draft as opposed to Moore and Ridley. Thinking of it this way, it’s even more interesting that he’s ranked ahead of Courtland Sutton who was drafted three spots ahead of Pettis.
It will be interesting to see if Pettis breaks out beyond his overall score and things might require a patch to update. Given that’s only one point below, it could happen.