Tuesday’s Hot Clicks: The Best NFL Player Reactions to Their ‘Madden’ Ratings

Don’t dare tell NFL players that Madden is just a video game.

NFL players take their Madden ratings very seriously

Don’t dare tell NFL players that Madden is just a video game. Everyone in the league plays the popular video game franchise and players can be obsessed with their ratings. The newest installment of the series, Madden 20, comes out on Aug. 2 and the player ratings were just released on Monday.

Chargers receiver Keenan Allen had easily the best reaction, upset no so much with his 89 overall rating but his 69 strength rating “like I’m a little boy.”

Vikings defensive end Stephen Weatherly let his face do the talking after he learned he was rated just 70 overall.

Minnesota Vikings/YouTube

Other players decided to lash out on Twitter.

Of course Tom Brady had to get in on the action with a professionally produced video.

A bunch of teams also put out YouTube videos where a bunch of their players reacted in real time to their ratings. Vikings players were particularly shocked to learn that long-snapper Kevin McDermott had the highest toughness rating on the team, but they were on board when they remembered that he lost part of a finger and kept playing. 

But the only reaction I want to see is Josh Woodrum’s to being deemed the absolute worst player in the game

Baseball is so hard

It’s amazing how poorly non-baseball athletes can be a baseball activities. Throwing a ball or swinging a bat seems natural enough to anyone who grew up in North America. But if you’re the Greek Freak, well, it looks something like this.

Giannis is one of the 100 most athletic people in the world and he can hardly hit a ball off of a tee.

The best of SI

The oral history of the no-hitter the Angels threw in honor of Tyler Skaggs. ... Combining Russell Westbrook and James Harden will be a difficult task for the Rockets. ... The oral history of Tom Watson’s near-miracle at the 2009 British Open.

Around the sports world

I wholeheartedly agree with this take that Maddenneeds to bring back the “rushing attack” minigame. ... Phil Mickelson only consumed water and coffee to lose 15 pounds in 10 days before the British Open. ... Mark Cuban had a pretty funny quote about getting fined for leaking information to a reporter. ... You don’t see a batter stick up for a pitcher who plunked him very often.

Devin Hester’s son inherited his dad’s elusiveness

Gio Urshela is a defensive wizard

Classic Spurrier

Nutrition is very important

This needs to happen

Sometimes it’s best to just forget it’s 13–0

The Yankees got beaten singlehandedly by Travis d’Arnaud

Alex Smith finally got this thing off his leg after eight months

Sean Payton doesn’t always need Drew Brees to get out of a jam

King George is rolling over in his grave

Knicks fans felt the same way

Surfing might be the world’s most beautiful sport

That’s a clip from a new documentary on the legendary big wave surfer Nathan Fletcher, “Heavy Water,” out today on iTunes.

Not sports

Cops in Tennessee are telling people not to flush their drugs because it could create “meth-gators.” ... The cast of Game of Thrones was very upset with how the show’s final season was received. ... Four kids in Australia, ages 10 to 14, stole a car and drove it almost 600 miles before being caught. ... A computer taught itself to solve a Rubik’s cube in less than a second.

The ocean is a crazy place

Your hands will sweat like crazy watching this

Attaching fireworks to a drone to break up a street party

A good song

This album came out 11 years ago yesterday.

Email dan.gartland@simail.com with any feedback or follow me on Twitter for approximately one half-decent baseball joke per week. Bookmark this page to see previous editions of Hot Clicks and find the newest edition every day. By popular request I’ve made a Spotify playlist of the music featured here. Visit our Extra Mustard page throughout each day for more offbeat sports stories.