One of the biggest changes to the Chicago Bears this season will be at running back, where rookie David Montgomery is expected to shoulder the load as the early-down workhorse and fill the void created by the trade of Jordan Howard to the Philadelphia Eagles.
Almost everyone in the Bears organization has raved about Montgomery early in his tenure with the team. From Ryan Pace to Matt Nagy and running backs coach Charles London, it’s been a uniform message: Montgomery has all the traits needed to thrive in Chicago.
Just don’t tell that to the good folks at EA Sports, who released the complete Madden 20 player rating database Monday.
Montgomery’s 71 rating falls well behind Tarik Cohen (85) and Mike Davis (77) on the virtual depth chart.
And it’s not just the overall rating that comes up short. He’s worse in just about every major running back category: awareness, speed, acceleration and agility.
Montgomery had a wide range of opinions as a draft prospect out of Iowa State. The biggest knock against his game was his lack of explosiveness, which didn’t seem very fair at the time. His NFL Combine performance didn’t exactly help his cause, but he ended up with a similar athletic profile to Kareem Hunt, who’s enjoyed an extreme amount of success on the field early in his career.
It would qualify as a massive shock if Montgomery doesn’t quickly ascend to the top of the Bears’ depth chart this summer. And fortunately for Madden players across the country, they’ll be able to update his player rating sometime soon thereafter.
