Madden NFL 23 Covers Pay Tribute To The Career Of John Madden
John Madden has lent his name to the longest-running NFL franchise in the video game industry for nearly three and a half decades and EA Sports is honoring the memory of the late coach and broadcaster with three separate covers for Madden NFL 23. Following John Madden's passing in December 2021, EA Sports made the call to dedicate this year's game to the man who made the franchise possible in the first place. To do so, rather than featuring an athlete on the cover of Madden NFL 23, EA Sports created three distinct covers to celebrate the three major areas of John Madden's contributions to the game of football.
The first cover honors John Madden's contributions to the NFL as a coach, featuring him being carried off the field on the shoulders of his players following his head coaching victory in Super Bowl XI in 1976. Next up, is an homage to his time as an NFL color commentator, which he did for CBS Sports, Fox Sports, ABC Sports, and NBC Sports from 1979 to 2009. The final Madden NFL 23 cover pays tribute to his contributions to his NFL video game franchise, with a digital-only All-Madden Edition. The art, created by Philadelphia artist Chuck Styles, recreates the original 1988 John Madden Football box art.
Electronic Arts founder Trip Hawkins originally approached John Madden in 1984 to ask for his assistance in bringing football to video games in an authentic way. Because he didn't think the 8-bit systems of the time could handle 22 players on the field at once, Hawkins pitched Madden on a 7-on-7 variation. Madden scoffed at the idea of lowering the player count, insisting that it cannot be authentic football if it's not 11-on-11. Because of this, the first entry in the series, John Madden Football, took four years to
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