Madden 17: NFL Player Ratings and Final Preview Before Release Date

The wait is already over for some with EA Access accounts and nearly over for the rest of the world. Madden 17 will gets its long-awaited release Tuesday, hitting stores and online retailers at midnight in what's always one of the year's most anticipated sports games.

If the early reviews are any indication, EA looks to have a winner on its hands.

Metacritic currently lists Madden 17 as having a score of 82 based on nine reviews, on par with last year's 84 overall. More reviews should come in over the next few days to give us a better indication of where the game really stands, but it's already drawn a strong review from the likes of IGN's Dustin Toms:

"

Madden has finally found its comfort zone between the tackles, and offense and defense have reached a great balance. The community’s gameplay wishes were granted with a new focus on Franchise mode, led by the Play the Moments feature. Outside of its mood-killing commentators, Madden 17 is just about everything we’ve been waiting for since EA Sports took full control of the NFL license. Football is back, and it’s only a yard or two short of becoming an all-time great.

"

The biggest changes in this year's game come on the field and in franchise mode—the two most talked-about areas on a yearly basis.

Under the hood, EA is promoting new ball-carrier moves that make the running game more realistic and actually incentivize you to grind it out. Passing the ball is fun. Running takes work, and in past games, the whole thing often felt stilted and preordained. There was seemingly little difference between the styles of Jamaal Charles and Le'Veon Bell; hit the hole (if one exists), get swallowed up seemingly at random after a three-yard gain, and go do it all over again until you become frustrated and pass the ball 87 times instead.

That is no more. Ball-carrier styles are now more representative of the actual players, with a new minigame scenario allowing you to fight for extra yardage. The Charleses of the world are going to respond better to jukes and spins; the Bells are going to truck you over or stick a hand in your face.

There are also massive changes to the defensive side, which should make playing in the front seven fun—for perhaps the first time ever in a Madden game. As is the case in real life, hitting the gaps now matters. Defensive linemen aren't stuck in seemingly endless animations fighting a brick-wall offensive lineman; time everything right, and there's an honest-to-goodness chance you can blow things up in the backfield.

"When implementing the run fits system, we installed it the same way the defensive coordinators install their defenses in the NFL—Alignment, Assignment and Technique—and what this amounts to is every defender on the field having a specific job to do on each play the user calls," the company's website reads.

Add in changes to special teams that now make blocking kicks possible, and one could easily argue this is the most authentic Madden yet.

That realism carries over to franchise mode, which now features practice squads and weekly game-planning drills that make the mode more immersive. While it's not necessarily a "realistic" feature, Madden 17 allows you to streamline the game-playing process with "Big Decisions"—a largely sim mode that allows you to play only the most pivotal moments.

True obsessives like myself likely won't use that option much, but it could become a standout for more casual players looking to manage their teams while maintaining a semblance of control. The draft has also seen a few subtle tweaks, which allow you to see a player's true potential after selecting him. 

Commentary was given a much-needed overhaul as well, with Brandon Gaudin and Charles Davis taking over the Madden commentary booth. Gaudin and Davis will provide additional commentary to stuff they already have in the bank throughout the 2016 season. There has already been an update despite the game not being formally released, a promising sign for the future.

Stacked together, these additions feel like EA is tying up loose ends on what was already a stellar Madden 16. Better commentary. Better gameplay. Better franchise. If all these work in practice along with post-release support via patches and updates, we might actually get through a year without some annoying doofus saying NFL 2K5 was the greatest football game of all time. 

(It is not. It was an awesome game 12 years ago. Please go play NFL 2K5 right now in 2016 and tell me how much fun you have. None? OK, great. Stop it.)

Top Player Ratings

Pos.	Player	Position	Team	Rating
T1	Rob Gronkowski	TE	New England Patriots	99
T1	Luke Kuechly	MLB	Carolina Panthers	99
T1	Von Miller	LOLB	Denver Broncos	99
T1	J.J. Watt	RE	Houston Texans	99
5	Aaron Donald	DT	Los Angeles Rams	98
T6	Antonio Brown	WR	Pittsburgh Steelers	97
T6	Justin Houston	LOLB	Kansas City Chiefs	97
T6	Tyron Smith	LT	Dallas Cowboys	97
T6	Joe Thomas	LT	Cleveland Browns	97
T6	Marshal Yanda	RG	Baltimore Ravens	97
T11	Julio Jones	WR	Atlanta Falcons	96
T11	Tyrann Mathieu	FS	Arizona Cardinals	96
T11	Aaron Rodgers	QB	Green Bay Packers	96
T14	Geno Atkins	DT	Cincinnati Bengals	94
T14	Le'Veon Bell	RB	Pittsburgh Steelers	94
T14	Tom Brady	QB	New England Patriots	94
T14	Khalil Mack	OLB	Oakland Raiders	94
T14	Cam Newton	QB	Carolina Panthers	94
T14	Josh Norman	CB	Washington Redskins	94
T14	Harrison Smith	FS	Minnesota Vikings	94

Follow Tyler Conway (@jtylerconway) on Twitter.