The Madden cover has long been the most prestigious and talked about in the sports gaming world, which is maybe why the cover star keeps leaking for what will be the third consecutive year.
After Madden 20 featured the Chiefs' Pat Mahomes and last year's game starred the Ravens' Lamar Jackson, the game may be moving away from the QB position and back to its roots with a running back on the cover. According to an apparent leak from a Pennsylvania-area GameStop set to take pre-orders soon, the Tennessee Titans' star RB Derrick Henry will grace the cover of Madden NFL 22.
The evidence is somewhat strong, though not foolproof. It appears someone inside a GameStop took a photo of the internal document for employees to use when taking pre-orders for the game. The image was not for public view, but it ended up on an NFL Instagram account where it went viral among sports gamers. Typically the Madden cover star is announced sometime around April, so if the team has sorted out its next cover star, we won't likely know officially for a few more weeks at least.
It makes a lot of sense if it's Derrick Henry though. For one, there's the simple synchronicity that Henry wears #22 and this will be Madden NFL 22. But on top of that, the team at Tiburon and EA always likes to pick a star in their prime. The last two covers were some of the best examples of that. Henry is coming off of back-to-back rushing titles including his most recent campaign where he became just the eighth player in NFL history to rush for over 2,000 yards. He joined Chris Johnson as the second Titan to do so after Johnson rushed for 2,006 yards in 2009, making the franchise the only one to have two players in the 2,000 yards club.
Last year, Lamar Jackson leaked the news himself in a video conference call with NFL media, so you can expect EA is hoping Henry is tighter-lipped than that. If it's not Henry, we'd think a few superstars such as Russell Wilson, Kyler Murray, or Aaron Donald may be considered finalists given their fame and skills. Either way, we should know officially in the weeks ahead.
