But those aren’t the reasons that this year’s Madden 11 game will be a hit.  It will be a hit because it is forced to be.  EA Sports exclusive deal with the NFL is coming to an end.  New competition is sprouting up in games like Backbreaker.  The game will be good because if the people who make it don’t do a good job this time around, they may lose their jobs.  The standard has been set fairly low, because of past dissappointments, so all that needs to be done is to make Madden 11 playable.

The Jacksonville Jaguars have steadily declined over the past few years since their 12-4 season 3 years ago.  However, in Madden 11 they will be a force once again.  The key to Madden has always been time management and a solild defense.  With the addition of Aaron Kampman and Kirk Morrison, the Jaguars defense is scary again.  The linebackers are as good as they have ever been with Morrison, Durant, and Smith.  But the true strength of the Jaguars team in Madden 2011 comes in their biggest weakness in the NFL.  The secondary becomes scary if you move either Cox or Mathis to free safety and move the speedy Reggie Nelson to strong safety. 

On offense, all you have to do is get the ball in Maurice Jones-Drew’s hands and you will find your way into the endzone.  With rising stars Mercedes Lewis and Mike Sims-Walker, the offense is becoming very potent if Qb Garrard can return to form.  Look to get secret weapon Mike Thomas involved on screen passes and drag routes.  The Jaguars are by no means the best team in Madden 11, but they will be very usable.

More team specific strategies coming soon to Maddenholics, so keep checking in.

Complete Madden 11 Ratings

1. St. Louis – Sam Bradford – QB, Oklahoma – 80
2. Detroit – Ndamukong Suh – DT, Nebraska – 85
3. Tampa Bay – Gerald McCoy – DT, Oklahoma – 84
4. Washington – Trent Williams – OT, Oklahoma – 79
5. Kansas City – Eric Berry – S, Tenn., – 85
6. Seattle – Russell Okung – T, Okla. St. – 85
7. Cleveland – Joe Haden – CB, Fla. – 79
8. Oakland – Rolando McClain – MLB, Alabama – 79
9. Buffalo - CJ Spiller – RB, Clemson – 79
10. Jacksonville – Tyson Alualu – DT, Cal – 65
11. San Francisco – Anothony Davis – OT, Rutgers – 75
12. San Diego – Ryan Matthews – RB, Fresno State – 77
13. Philladelphia – Brandon Graham – OLB, Michigan – 78
14. Seattle – Earl Thomas – S, Texas – 81
15. New Yourk Giants – Jason Pierre-Paul – DE, USF – 79
16. Tennessee – Derrick Morgan – DE, Ga. Tech – 79
17. San Francisco – Mike Iupati – OL, Idaho – 84
18. Pittsburgh - Maurkice Pouncey – OL, Fla. – 76
19. Atlanta – Sean Weatherspoon – LB, Mizzou – 75
20. Houston – Kareem Jackson – CB, Alabama – 70
21. Cincinnatti – Jermaine Gresham – TE, Okla. – 78
22. Denver – Demaryius Thomas – WR, Ga. Tech – 74
23. Green Bay – Bryan Bulaga – OL, Iowa – 78
24. Dallas – Dez Bryant – WR, Okla St – 80
25. Denver – Tim Tebow – QB, Fla. – 70
26. Arizona – Dan Williams – DT, Tenn. – 76
27. New England – Devin McCourty – CB, Rutgers – 74
28. Miami – Jared Odrick – DT, Penn State – 76
29. New York Jets - Kyle Wilson – CB, Boise State – 76
30. Detroit – Javhid Best – RB, Cal – 74
31. Indianapolis – Jerry Hughes – DE, TCU – 74
32. New Orleans – Patrick Robinson – CB, Florida State – 75

Congratulations to Drew Brees! He has been named the cover athlete for madden nfl 11.  The fans voted him to be the cover athlete over Reggie Wayne and Jared Allen.

For more Madden 11 Cover News and NFL Draft News Check out our partner:

Madden Tips

Madden NFL 10 was a pretty dramatic departure from Madden NFL 09’s emphasis on twitch control. We really focused on trying to make the game look and feel more like what you see on Sundays. In the end we did a decent job, but we found out pretty quickly that the tech we were using wasn’t giving us the control that we needed to match our vision. Things like acceleration, direction changes, and momentum were very difficult to tune and while the end result was a fun user experience, we knew we had to make a pretty dramatic change in our tool set to allow us to achieve our goals. Click here to read the entire blog.

From EA Sports

1. Cowboys

2. Saints

3. Redskins

4. Colts

5. Raiders

Remember, we know very little about madden 2011 right now, so depending on how important various aspects of the game are (maybe the awareness rating will finally mean something) things could easily change.

  ”Another area of focus we have been working on is tuning the frequency for when “aggressive” types of catches can trigger. In previous years there have been situations where you could sometimes see a receiver playing a catch where he runs back towards the ball. These could sometimes be seen on Curl/Hitch/Smash type routes as well as Screen routes behind the line of scrimmage. There is nothing more frustrating than calling a 5-yard route on 3rd and 4 and having the receiver catch it moving towards the QB and get tackled for a 2-yard gain. Well, this year, the receiver won’t play those types of catches (unless of course there is a defender between him and the ball). If you are running a 10-Yard Curl and the defender is behind you, the receiver will always be forced to match a ’standing’ catch so he can try to backpedal into the defender for extra yardage. Also, we eliminated the likelihood that a receiver that is behind the line of scrimmage (e.g. WR or HB Screen play) would play a running, aggressive style catch if he is in open space.”

Last but not least, Cummings addresses those dreaded sideline catches.

“For ‘Madden NFL 11,’ with the help of the Catch Debugging Tool, we have corrected all of our sideline/back of the end zone catches. You no longer have to be afraid of trying to squeeze that Deep Out or Goalline fade inbounds, as now the receivers have much more advanced AI to get both feet in.”But that’s not all, as Cummings adds that EA Sports has done extensive motion-capture work this year when it comes to these virtual receivers in order to get more authentic animations into the game.Will the new animations and debugging pay off? ESPN will find out when EA Sports reveals “Madden NFL 11″ to the press for the first time the week of the NFL Draft.