A Comprehensive Guide to Pro Football Video Game Covers

Another Madden $70 re-skin is upon us, so let's take a moment to explore the history of all the people who have been featured on the cover of an pro football video game.

While the selection of the Madden cover athlete is now an event, there was a wild wild west period of football games from the 80s to the mid-2000s where anybody with a computer could and would build football games, with the selection of the cover being all over the place. Roger Craig was the first cover athlete in 1985 on NFL Challenge for MS-DOS. Madden's first game was in 1988, then by the mid-90s getting a cover athlete or spokesman for your football game was pretty standard.

I wanted to compile those games and covers based on this Wiki article (and a few that it was missing from that list) and see who was on the main cover of all of those games (some games were almost completely irrelevant, so I left them off this list). Some of these may have more alternates with other people, but I'll stick with the main cover.

Covers by Position

https://preview.redd.it/1dzua4o2hl2b1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=023c573335e64d21fccc937a44db0ae995510db6

*These are heavily boosted by John Madden being on 10 Madden covers

Obviously QBs dominate here, but I didn't realize how little defensive players have been on football game covers (9%), with none being on a cover since Richard Sherman in 2014. I'd love to see more defensive players on the Madden cover. Who would be the most likely defensive guy in the near future? Aaron Donald, TJ Watt, Nick Bosa, Myles Garrett, or Sauce Gardner?

Covers by Team

https://preview.redd.it/8f29df4ygl2b1.png?width=600&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=3b93f8a4ddb26b2cee1f6abd74652f44b7fbfdcb

If a team's player was not a lead on the cover or was not any identifiable player, I gave them a *

The Re-skins/Commanders?, Jags, Panthers, and Bills have appeared on a cover but never with an athlete as the lead or with a real person. Only the Texans have never appeared at all on the cover of any football video game. I'd say the Bills are most likely to get one next (Josh Allen), then the Jags (Trevor Lawrence), then the Panthers/Texans if either hits a home run with Young or Stroud. The Commanders have a long road ahead to getting a feature cover athlete, unless you ask Sam Howell who thinks he should be this year's Madden cover athlete.

Most Prolific Cover People

https://preview.redd.it/5axoymcakl2b1.png?width=2871&format=png&auto=webp&v=enabled&s=9ecf9c52cad0647d1572d2d9c85ebdef0dd277c3

Kordell Stewart, Daunte Culpepper, and Donovan McNabb (and possibly Lamar Jackson, still too early for him) are the only players with multiple appearances that are either not or are unlikely to make the Hall of Fame. McNabb is the only guy to appear in multiple covers in the same year. Also of note, 7 athletes were on a cover without ever making a pro bowl in their careers: Brad Muster, Pat Terrell, Gordon Laro, Chris Zorich, Albert Fontenot, William Floyd, and Peyton Hillis (Hillis was the only one to be the primary cover athlete).

I'll list all the games and their respective covers by their era below. I'll also attach some of my favorite covers from each era. If the cover person was a Hall of Famer, I'll mark them with a ^\). If they're very likely to make the HoF but they're not yet eligible, I'll mark them with a ⁺

Covers by Era

Decade	# of Games	# of Games w/Cover Athletes	# of Cover Athletes
60s	1	0	0
70s	4	0	0
80s	11	2 (18%)	2
90s	36	32 (89%)	21
00s	40	38 (95%)	36
10s	14	10 (71%)	12
20s	8	4 (50%)	5
Total	114	86 (75%)	76

We didn't see the first cover athlete until 1985 with Roger Craig. They didn't really become standard until the early to mid-90s after Madden became a big selling point for the early Madden games. The dip in the last 2 decades is because there's just less games, so any generic football games will have a large effect.

The Early Days: 1965-1982

1978: Football! for the Magnavox Odyssey 2 was the first football video game with a cover, but obviously the cover athletes are generic.

Year	Game	Cover Athlete	Team	Position
1965	FTBALL	NA	NA	NA
1972	Football (Magnavox)	NA	NA	NA
1978	Football!	Generic players	NA	NA
1978	Football (Atari)	Generic players	NA	NA
1979	NFL Football	Generic players	NA	NA
1982	Realsports: Football	Generic players	NA	NA

The 2D Era: 1983-1996

1985: NFL Challenge was the first football game with a real cover athlete (Roger Craig). This was the original bar for realism in football simulation, to where it was used in a 1988 ESPN Program \"NFL Dream Season\" where they simulated the greatest teams of all time against each other.

1988: John Madden Football released on the Apple II, MS-DOS, and Commodore 64/128 (partly being developed by Bethesda), which was the beginning of the most dominant franchise in football video games. They featured no NFL teams due to a lack of an NFL license.

1991: Tecmo Super Bowl is probably still my personal favorite football video game. It's totally timeless, and if you pick the Raiders then you're a cheater.

Year	Game	Cover Athlete	Team	Position
1983	10-Yard Fight	Generic Jersey	NA	NA
1984	Super Action Football	Generic player	NA	NA
1985	NFL Challenge	Roger Craig	49ers	RB
1987	4th & Inches	Generic players	NA	NA
1987	Tecmo Bowl	Generic players	NA	NA
1988	TV Sports: Football	Generic player	NA	NA
1988	John Madden Football ('88)	John Madden*	None	John Madden
1989	ABC Monday Night Football	Generic player	NA	NA
1989	NFL	Generic players	49ers, Raiders, Oilers, Broncos, Re-skins	NA
1989	PlayMaker Football	Equipment	NA	NA
1990	Joe Montana Football	Joe Montana*	None	QB
1990	John Madden Football ('90)	John Madden*	None	John Madden
1991	John Madden Football II (or '92)	John Madden*	None	John Madden
1991	Tecmo Super Bowl	Generic player	NA	NA
1992	NFL Sports Talk Football '93	Joe Montana*	49ers	QB
1992	Front Page Sports Football	Generic players	NA	NA
1993	Capcom's MVP Football	Brad Muster	Bears	FB
1993	Madden NFL '94	John Madden*	NA	HC/Announcer
1993	NFL Football '94 Starring Joe Montana	Joe Montana*	Chiefs	QB
1993	Mutant League Football	Mutant	NA	NA
1994	ESPN Sunday Night NFL	Chris Berman	NA	Announcer
1994	Madden NFL '95	John Madden*	NA	John Madden
1994	Tecmo Super Bowl II: Special Edition	Generic player	Cowboys	NA
1994	Troy Aikman NFL Football	Troy Aikman*	Cowboys	QB
1995	Emmitt Smith Football	Emmitt Smith*	None	RB
1995	Madden NFL '96	John Madden*, Pat Terrell, Gordon Laro	NA, Panthers, Jags	John Madden, DB, TE
1995	NFL Quarterback Club 96	Steve Young*, Chris Zorich, Albert Fontenot	49ers, Bears	QB, DL
1995	Sterling Sharpe: End 2 End	Sterling Sharpe	None	WR
1995	Tecmo Super Bowl III: Final Edition	Generic players	Raiders, Bills	NA
1995	NFL GameDay	William Floyd	49ers	FB
1996	Madden NFL 97	John Madden*	NA	John Madden
1996	NFL '97	Kordell Stewart	Steelers	QB
1996	NFL Quarterback Club 97	Dan Marino*	Dolphins	QB
1996	NFL GameDay '97	Daryl "Moose" Johnston	Cowboys	FB

​

The Parity Era: 1997-2004

1997: NFL Blitz came from Midway studios and was a breath of fresh air for football games. They had mostly been stagnant trying to hone in on realistic simulation in 2D form, whereas Blitz came out in 3D and threw realism out the window. I definitely spent too much money on the arcade version of this game.

2000: Madden 2001 started the tradition of having their games feature a cover athlete in this format, which consolidated into nearly everyone following this trend.

2001: Backyard Football 2002 was a more kid-friendly version of a football video game, and they also had other games for other professional sports. I definitely played this a lot on my old Windows Me computer, and Pablo Sanchez is a god.

2002: NFL Fever was Microsoft's foray into football video games on the original Xbox. All 3 of their games featured Peyton Manning as the cover athlete.

2002: NFL GameDay 2003 was 989 Sports' exclusive for Sony on the PlayStation platform.

2004: ESPN NFL 2K5 was the last great football game before the NFL exclusively gave their license to the EA. It was this game that definitely led to NFL's decision though, as they slashed their release price to an unheard of $20, which forced Madden 2004 to release at $30 instead of the typical $50. This pissed off the NFL, who decided to have less competition instead.

Year	Game	Cover Athlete	Team	Position
1997	NFL Blitz	Kordell Stewart	Steelers	QB
1997	NFL Quarterback Club 98	Brett Favre*	Packers	QB
1997	NFL GameDay '98	Jerome Bettis*	Steelers	RB
1997	Madden NFL 98 (64)	John Madden*	NA	John Madden
1998	NFL Xtreme	Mike Alstott	Bucs	FB
1998	NFL Quarterback Club 99	Brett Favre*	Packers	QB
1998	NFL GameDay '99	Terrell Davis*	Broncos	RB
1998	Madden NFL 99	John Madden*	NA	John Madden
1999	NFL Xtreme 2	John Randle*	Vikings	DL
1999	NFL Quarterback Club 2000	Brett Favre*	Packers	QB
1999	NFL GameDay 2000	Terrell Davis*	Broncos	RB
1999	NFL 2K	Randy Moss*	Vikings	WR
1999	Madden NFL 2000	John Madden*	NA	John Madden
1999	Backyard Football	Steve Young)*, Jocinda Smith, Amir Khan	49ers, Generic	QB
2000	NFL Quarterback Club 2001	Brett Favre*	Packers	QB
2000	NFL GameDay 2001	Marshall Faulk*	Rams	RB
2000	NFL 2K1	Randy Moss*	Vikings	WR
2000	Madden NFL 2001	Eddie George	Titans	RB
2001	NFL Quarterback Club 2002	Brett Favre*, Rich Gannon	Packers, Raiders	QB
2001	NFL GameDay 2002	Donovan McNabb	Eagles	QB
2001	NFL Fever 2002	Peyton Manning*	Colts	QB
2001	NFL 2K2	Randy Moss*	Vikings	WR
2001	Madden NFL 2002	Daunte Culpepper	Vikings	QB
2001	Backyard Football 2002	Drew Bledsoe or Donovan McNabb	Pats or Eagles	QB
2001	ESPN NFL PrimeTime 2002	Edgerrin James*	Colts	RB
2002	NFL GameDay 2003	Tom Brady+	Pats	QB
2002	NFL Fever 2003	Peyton Manning*	Colts	QB
2002	NFL 2K3	Brian Urlacher*	Bears	LB
2002	Madden NFL 2003	Marshall Faulk*	Rams	RB
2003	NFL GameDay 2004	LaDainian Tomlinson*	Chargers	RB
2003	NFL Fever 2004	Peyton Manning*	Colts	QB
2003	Madden NFL 2004	Michael Vick	Falcons	QB
2003	ESPN NFL Football	Warren Sapp*	Bucs	DL
2003	Backyard Football 2004	Jeff Garcia	49ers	QB
2004	NFL GameDay 2005	Derrick Brooks*	Bucs	LB
2004	Madden NFL 2005	Ray Lewis*	Ravens	LB
2004	ESPN NFL 2K5	Terrell Owens*	Eagles	WR
2004	NFL Street	Ricky Williams	Dolphins	RB

​

The Madden Era: 2005-Present

2005: NFL Street 2 was the second in the NFL Street series as a kind of spiritual successor to NFL Blitz. EA tried to have some diversity in their football video games outside of the Madden franchise, so they had the short-lived Street franchise under \"EA BIG\"

2006: NFL Head Coach was a new perspective on NFL Games where you play as the coach instead of the players. I enjoyed these although they could get a little boring.

2007: All Pro Football 2K8 was 2K's attempt at keeping the 2K football franchise alive without the coveted NFL license. They got three HoF players on the cover in Elway, Barry, and Rice, but not the actual license to any NFL team. This game received praise for its mechanics, but poor sales showed that a non-NFL licensed game would always struggle to make it.

2011: Madden 12 was maybe the last good Madden game. Also, Peyton Hillis. The only guy on a NFL football game cover to never make a Pro Bowl. This guy is an actual hero though, so good for him.

2019: Doug Flutie's Maximum Football was a mix of american and CFL football as another attempt at making a football game without the NFL license to poor results. They have announced a new game as a free to play title on new platforms, but no games in this franchise have released since 2020.

2020: Retro Bowl is a mobile game more in the style of Tecmo Super Bowl than Madden. It's probably the most successful non-Madden game since ESPN NFL 2K5, and it's pretty fun. People should definitely give this one a try since it's free to play on any mobile platform.

2022: Madden 23 gave the cover back to Madden for the first time since 1999 to honor the passing of the legend John Madden. Unfortunately the game inside the cover was crap, has been the style of Madden games for over a decade.

Year	Game	Cover Athlete	Team	Position
2005	Madden NFL 06	Donovan McNabb	Eagles	QB
2005	NFL Street 2	Jeremy Shockey, Xzibit	Giants, Pimp My Ride	TE, Rapper
2005	Blitz: The League	Generic players	NA	NA
2005	Backyard Football 2006	Daunte Culpepper	Vikings	QB
2006	Madden NFL 07	Shaun Alexander	Seahawks	RB
2006	NFL Head Coach	Bill Cowher*	Steelers	HC
2006	NFL Street 3	Chad Johnson	Bengals	WR
2007	Backyard Football '07	Ben Roethlisberger+	Steelers	QB
2007	Madden NFL 08	Vince Young	Titans	QB
2007	All-Pro Football 2K8	John Elway*, Barry Sanders*, Jerry Rice*	Generic	QB, RB, WR
2007	Backyard Football '08	Tom Brady+	Pats	QB
2008	NFL Tour	Shawne Merriman	Chargers	LB
2008	NFL Head Coach 09	Tony Dungy*	Colts	HC
2008	Backyard Football '09	Tom Brady+	Pats	QB
2009	Madden NFL 10	Troy Polamalu*, Larry Fitzgerald+	Steelers, Cards	DB, WR
2009	Backyard Football '10	Frank Gore+, Eli Manning+, Kurt Warner*, Peyton Manning*, Adrian Peterson+, Jason Witten+	49ers, Giants, Cards, Colts, Vikings, Cowboys	RB, QB, TE
2010	Quick Hit Football	Logo	NA	NA
2010	Madden NFL 11	Drew Brees+	Saints	QB
2010	Backbreaker	Generic player	NA	NA
2011	Madden NFL 12	Peyton Hillis	Browns	RB
2012	Madden NFL 13	Calvin Johnson*	Lions	WR
2013	Madden NFL 25	Barry Sanders* or Adrian Peterson+	Lions or Vikings	RB
2014	Madden NFL 15	Richard Sherman+	Seahawks	DB
2015	Madden NFL 16	Odell Beckham Jr.	Giants	WR
2016	Madden NFL 17	Rob Gronkowski+	Pats	TE
2016	Axis Football 2016	Generic player	NA	NA
2017	Madden NFL 18	Tom Brady+	Pats	QB
2017	Axis Football 17	Generic player	NA	NA
2018	Madden NFL 19	Antonio Brown+	Steelers	WR
2019	Doug Flutie's Maximum Football 2019	Doug Flutie	Generic (Stampeders)	QB
2020	Sunday Rivals	Helmet	NA	NA
2020	Retro Bowl	Generic player	NA	NA
2020	Legend Bowl	Silhouette	NA	NA
2019	Madden NFL 20	Patrick Mahomes+	Chiefs	QB
2020	Madden NFL 21	Lamar Jackson	Ravens	QB
2021	Madden NFL 22	Tom Brady+, Patrick Mahomes+	Bucs, Chiefs	QB
2022	Madden NFL 23	John Madden*	NA	John Madden
2023	NFL Pro Era	Lamar Jackson	Ravens	QB