Oakland Raiders: Which players did Madden overrate and underrate?

The Oakland Raiders’ 2019 Madden ratings have officially been released and it’s always fun to determine which players were overrated and which were underrated.

The Oakland Raiders are just a few days away from the start of training camp and anticipation is beginning to build. After a disappointing 4-12 season last year, expectations are high following an offseason full of significant change.

The likes of Antonio Brown, Trent Brown, and Clelin Ferrell are some of the many new faces that will take the field when the Raiders set off to Napa in a couple of days. But training camp isn’t the only fun thing happening around this time of year.

To help build excitement for the new football year, Madden has gone ahead and released their entire set of player ratings for the 2019 season. And as expected, the ratings have been a cause of plenty of disagreement amongst the football community.

The Raiders aren’t excluded from this as a few of their players seem to have been misrated by the popular video game. Of course, this isn’t anything new — nor is it something particularly significant.

In fact, it means nothing in the long run.

But it could be fun to take a look at the team’s roster and determine which players were overrated and which players were underrated. So let’s do just that.

Underrated: OG Gabe Jackson

Raiders guard Gabe Jackson has long been one of the more underrated players in the NFL. For years, Jackson played second-fiddle to the likes of Kelechi Osemele, Rodney Hudson, and Donald Penn on the dominant Raiders offensive lines of the past.

And even now that two of the three are gone, he still doesn’t get the credit that he deserves.

Jackson played in 13 games last season and struggled through most of the season dealing with a pectoral issue before winding up on the injured reserve because of an elbow injury. But even during his injury-riddled campaign, Jackson still performed admirably.

The 28-year-old finished the season with a 69.2 grade from Pro Football Focus which ranked him as the No. 17 guard in the league. The grade was the lowest he had received in his career, but still indicative of a solid season.

Yet, Madden dropped his rating to a 77 overall this year which placed him as the No. 27 guard in the NFL. Even just going off his performance last season, that’s far too low.

Then when you factor in his years of excellent play that have seemingly flown under the radar, the rating looks even worse.

From 2014-2018, Jackson has never been ranked lower than the 27th best guard in the league — which he was rated way back in 2014 — and yet that’s exactly where Madden rates him.

Perhaps one of these years Jackson will get the nationwide respect that he deserves. Or perhaps the highest-graded guard in the AFC West will continue to be overlooked.