The Madden 21 covers with Baltimore Ravens quarterback Lamar Jackson on the cover have been officially released. There are three different covers for the three different versions of the Madden 21 game being released.
Madden 21 covers are out… pic.twitter.com/yUaj2uQPyN
— Adam Schefter (@AdamSchefter) June 16, 2020
There is the base Madden that has Jackson dropping back to pass. The deluxe edition has Jackson flipping up the ball to himself, while the MVP version has a close up of Jackson with his helmet sitting on the top of his head.
Some of Jackson's teammates were given a sneak peek of the covers a day early, and they all came away impressed.
We gave Ravens players a sneak peek at Lamar on the cover of Madden NFL 21 🔥 @EAMaddenNFL @Ravens @Lj_era8 @markingram21 @Willie_Snead4G @ZEUS__78 @Mandrews_81 @megatronnie @jtuck9 pic.twitter.com/tNCXNT64es
— The Checkdown (@thecheckdown) June 15, 2020
Kicker Justin Tucker pulled a page out of Terrell Owens' playbook to give his approval to the Madden 21 covers:
Article Continues Below“That's my quarterback,” Tucker said. “That's my teammate. LJ8, a new era.”
Orlando Brown Jr was also excited to see the guy he is protecting on the cover of Madden 21:
“That's hard bruh. That's tight,” Brown said. “It's got an old school look. This is some of their best work.”
The cover was originally supposed to be released on June 1st, but with the civil unrest throughout the country, EA Sports decided to delay the release by a couple of weeks:
“We stand with our African American / Black community of friends, players colleagues and partners,” the EA Sports statement said. “Our immediate attention is on actions we can take to drive change against the unjust treatment and systemic bias that is plaguing the nation and our world.”
“We'll find another time to talk football with you. Because this is bigger than a game, bigger than sports, and needs all of us to stand together and commit to change.”
Jackson has been outspoken about social justice issues, so it made sense to wait a couple of weeks to officially unveil it.