14 DAY TRIAL // During the Super Bowl of the last NFL season, young Tennessee Titans' Vince Young (double-threat QB on the cusp of stardom), had a pretty good game going on, helping his team go from 2-8 to 8-8, but all that was about to change in the second season. He isn't by far the best football player out there at the moment. Still, EA Tiburon insists that Young is on Madden NFL 08 cover. In an interview with 1UP, Chris Erb, Tiburon's Director of Marketing said:
"If you look back at the history of Madden covers, I don't know if we've ever really put the best player on the cover -- last year Shaun Alexander was an anomaly because he had a tremendous year, and fit in with our feature set." Further more, the man explains why the choice for the cover doesn't always have to be the best player at that time:
"A lot goes into who we put on the cover. First, are they a gamer? And I mean a real gamer, not just someone who says they're a gamer. Second, we haven't talked about our feature set yet, but Vince Young lines up really well with what we're trying to do. And the third thing, which was to me the most important: if you're an NFL fan, one thing you notice in the league right now is the giant youth movement. Last year's draft was like the 1983 draft, you had Young, Reggie Bush, Matt Leinart, Joseph Addai, Marques Colston, Devin Hester. And I think Vince is really the face of that movement. For a guy to come in, win six straight games, win Rookie of the Year, and be the first rookie quarterback to play in the Pro Bowl -- it says a lot about the type of year he had."
However, the developer keeps fingers crossed for Young's following season and also jokes a little on their choice with the "young" player: "We're trying to go with a really young, healthy guy who's not going to get hurt. The jinx thing bites us every year. I haven't told this to people, but I've got a bottle of champagne in my office that we're ready to pop once someone breaks the curse. And we're hoping Vince has a tremendous year, and will be that guy, because that's the best story for us."
But what if all the players in the NFL were ugly, yet good at their game and just one were handsome but stunk at the game? What then? I know that's not the case here, but it takes both looks and previous accomplishments for a player to make the cover of NFL 08, so yeah, Vince Young looks like a good choice to me too.