Madden appears to be wildly disrespecting Lions' tight end Sam LaPorta again

Last year when Madden 24 dropped, the Detroit Lions didn't have the best grades from the game. As we approach the release of Madden 25, it looks like the video game is once again dissing the Lions.

The big one is Sam LaPorta. When the initial ratings dropped for Madden 24, LaPorta had a 70 rating. That's fine. That makes sense for second-round rookie tight end. What didn't make sense was after he finished the season with All-Pro honor and Pro Bowl honors to go with one of the best rookie tight end seasons in NFL history, he only went up to 82. That made him the 14th rated tight end on Madden.

Ok, that was last year. No big deal right? Well, that was until a Twitter user and Lions fan found this tight end rating list for Madden 25.

Ok, what the hell is going on here? LaPorta is not in the top 10 in ratings for Madden 25. According to Madden Ratings, LaPorta is still at an 82 rating in Madden 25. What do you have to do to up your ratings? How is Dallas Goedert and 86?

Here's the thing. These might not be the real ratings for multiple reasons. The first being that this ratings list seems to have everyone at the same rating that they ended last season with. A solid chance that this graphic could be fake. The big way you can tell it might be fake is because there's a retired player on that list. Darren Waller retired at the beginning of June.

The second thing is even if the graphic were real, the ratings that people are seeing right now are from the beta testing version of the game. They are not yet finalized for the most part.

For example, last year Penei Sewell's initial grade was an 86. His grade on the beta test was 87. I don't know why they dropped him down a point when the game came out, but that's what happened. They also usually don't have the rookies graded out high at all.

Now, if this is real, the Madden team is just missing so incredibly hard on LaPorta for the second year in a row. We'll see what happens when EA Sports officially releases the game's ratings some time this month.

Related: What the Detroit Pistons can learn from the Detroit Lions to help them get back on track