The closed beta for EA’s Madden NFL 26 is currently going on, the first time that football fans across the world get to try out this year’s edition of one of the most successful video game franchises of all time. For Denver Broncos fans who were looking to get their first eye on the new-look Broncos for the upcoming season, they were met with disappointment when they saw their team’s rating.
The Madden 26 closed beta came out & the team overalls were leaked 👀
It is subject to change, but as of now, the Broncos are listed as the 5th-lowest team with an 79 overall team rating 😕
The only teams that are lower than Denver are:
Panthers
Commanders
Cards
NYG pic.twitter.com/ZxWI17Sv61
— SleeperBroncos (@SleeperBroncos) June 20, 2025
The Broncos, to the surprise of many, slotted in as the fifth-worst team in the league in the closed beta’s ratings at a 79 overall. The team began Madden 25 with the same rating, but that was way before the defense had a historic season and Bo Nix showed that he was ready to take the reigns of Sean Payton’s offense.
For the rest of the division, the Chiefs have a 92 team rating, the Chargers an 82 and the Raiders an 81.
Not putting the Broncos in the top 10 is completely understandable. But putting them below the Titans, Bears, Browns, Patriots, Jaguars and plenty of other teams is blasphemous. The orange and blue finished with the 14th-best record in the league last year, and have retained practically every important piece while adding plenty of playmakers who will only elevate the level of the team if healthy.
For some reason, EA thinks they’re the 27th-best team.
The Broncos added Evan Engram, Talanoa Hufanga, Jahdae Barron, RJ Harvey and more this offseason while returning 86% of the roster from last year, a number that led the league. They lost Javonte Williams and Lil’Jordan Humphrey, does EA think that those two carried the offense last year or something?
Maybe EA listened to Sean Payton at Broncos minicamp last week when he said that the team needs to”turn the game board over” going into this season and not worry about the progress they made last year. However, there is plenty of time for the game developers to tweak the ratings once training camp rolls around with almost a week left of the closed beta, then the time period for the open beta before the release of the game. If the Broncos are still at a 79 when the full game releases on Aug. 14, then there will be some questions that need to be answered.
On the bright side, if there’s one person who doesn’t care about these ratings, it’s Payton. He knows the group he has in the building, and knows that they are a team that can now go on a playoff run, not just make the playoffs. If he ever sat down and played a game of Madden, he would be disgusted about how far away from how football is truly played it is (anyone who has touched the game in the last six years knows that).