It looks like Madden may have messed up on Dan Campbell again
Why is this hard? Fans of the popular Madden football video game have recently been used to disappointment from the series. The thought is that EA Sports has spent more time duplicating the previous version of the game instead of improving. There might not be a more disappointed fan base than the Detroit Lions. It's […]
Why is this hard? Fans of the popular Madden football video game have recently been used to disappointment from the series. The thought is that EA Sports has spent more time duplicating the previous version of the game instead of improving.
There might not be a more disappointed fan base than the Detroit Lions. It's not because they disagree with the ratings of their favorite players and it's not because the render of Ford Field looks bad or something, it's because this game just can't seem to nail the look of their head coach Dan Campbell.
Campbell's likeness hasn't been used in the last two Madden games. They've instead used a guy that looks like a serial killer who will soon be the topic of a Netflix documentary. A guy that Lions fans have affectionately named Don Crimble.
To be fair, It's not all Madden's fault. EA Sports does the scans for coaches at the annual NFL owners meeting every offseason. Campbell was sick and did not make the meeting in 2022 and that forced EA to have to use the same model they used the year before.
Campbell did make this years meeting and the team released video of him getting scanned. The belief after this was that Don Crimble would skate off to Mexico to hide out until the heat came off him for his crimes and Campbell's likeness would finally be featured on the game. Well, that's sort of what's happening.
The Madden 24 closed beta recently came out and screenshots of Campbell's model on game have come out. This is not great.
What is this? It looks like they took Campbell's face and slapped it on the head and body of Don Crimble. It looks like Crimble is wearing a Dan Campbelll mask. It looks like that one cheat code that makes everyone's head bigger. This looks like the type of Halloween mask that you would get out of a Halloween store that used to be a Bed, Bath and Beyond. What are we doing here?
Seriously, he looks like Beavis and Butthead character.
The good news is that this is just a beta test. The game doesn't come out until August 18th. There's still time for EA to go in and make some tweaks to get this right. They're almost there. They just have to simply redo the entire model. That should be easy right? I totally know things about video game making.
Here's hoping that we get an actual Dan Campbell in Madden 25.
Featured image by Kirthmon F. Dozier / USA TODAY NETWORK
