Those who watched the Madden NFL 21 competitions over the course of this last year were treated to a show put on by the most talented gamers in the industry. As analysts dug deep into the numbers and watched the replays, there became a clear trend regarding what the most successful pros were doing; they were running the ball at an extremely high clip. Football in video games has come a long way since tossing up nonstop Hail Mary passes.

The Madden Ultimate Team mode is one thing, but the trend absolutely carries over to the Franchise mode as well. The best halfbacks influenced outcomes in tight games more often than not. Controlling the clock is key to establishing winning seasons on the higher difficulty settings. Now that the football season has ended, the final ratings are out for the halfbacks and it’s worth seeing where they ended up.

10 Joe Mixon - 88 OVR

Joe Mixon was once part of a three-person backfield and, for a time, analysts once thought to be the weakest of the three options. By making the most of his limited carries and shattering expectations, he’s one of the lone bright spots on a struggling Bengals team.

He’s now the lone star on his team and short of making all the right moves in Face of the Franchise mode and joining the Bengals, nobody is coming for his leading back role anytime soon. Some GMs are thinking that the Bengals might draft another running back to return him to a committee, but fantasy owners are hoping these are empty rumors.

9 Ezekiel Elliott - 88 OVR

After getting a monster deal a few years ago, huge expectations were placed on Ezekiel Elliott going into 2021. After a slow start, the thinking was that Dak Prescott was perhaps stealing the show and Elliott wasn’t getting enough handoffs.

However, a season-ending injury to Prescott didn’t help Elliott much. He remains one of the league’s premier backs (people aren’t making memes in the game about how bad he is yet), but as the third-highest ranked running back going into the season, he finished at ninth and many even think that could be too high for him.

8 Saquon Barkley - 89 OVR

With the weight of the world on his shoulders to try and lift up a struggling Giants franchise, Barley delivered excitement and energy to the field that new York hadn’t seen for a long time. But, but like how the latest Madden game was hit-and-miss, this electrifying play, both running and passing, did not always translate into victories.

Saquon’s rank dropped during the year, perhaps unfairly. After ditching Eli Manning and Odell Beckham Jr, Barkley remained as one of the new bright spots left on the team. And, unfortunately for him, football is a team game.

7 Josh Jacobs - 90 OVR

Josh Jacobs entered 2021 as the tenth highest-rated halfback, which many considered to be charitable. Fantasy players had long seen his value, but there was some consideration that he was the beneficiary of complete Raiders offense.

Jabobs moved up in the charts and in his ranking by proving that he might have been making the team look better than they actually were. Las Vegas had a disappointing campaign, but Jacobs performed in a way that made him part of the solution and not part of the problem.

6 Aaron Jones - 90 OVR

The 2020-2021 NFL season took its toll on many halfbacks. The best example of this might be Aaron Jones, whose rating stayed the same yet he rose in the rankings. While other halfbacks were showing that their 2020 season was flukey, Jones was showing remarkable consistency.

The Packers are in a bad place on cap space going into the next season, but they still managed to sign Jones to a significant contract. The fact that Green Bay is willing to make cuts elsewhere shows how much they value his steady contributions.

5 Dalvin Cook - 94 OVR

Dalvin Cook’s ascent from a 91 to a 94 OVR was more than just a small vindication for Vikings fans. For the longest time, they had been told that their star running back being carried by Kirk Cousins, Stefon Diggs, Kyle Rudolph, and Adam Thielen.

Cook was not the product of a fortuitous situation after all. Diggs went to Buffalo and the other three had mediocre statistics in the 2020-2021 season. The Vikings could no longer hide their talented young halfback and neither could the rating adjusters over at Madden.

4 Alvin Kamara - 94 OVR

It’s hard to say that any halfback was more disrespected than Alvin Kamara. The Saints had slowly increased his snap count and fantasy football players had him as a top-three selection in almost every format.

Yet he received an 88 OVR going into the season. Over the course of the season, as Kamara was rewarding the Saints, Madden players, and fantasy football owners, his score was adjusted upward by a total of six points.

3 Derrick Henry - 95 OVR

Usually, when a player is sitting at 95 OVR or better, the conversation is about if they are overrated. In Henry’s case, the fact that he isn’t the top rating halfback or a 99 OVR indicates that whoever is in charge of the ratings completely missed Henry’s last season.

Derrick Henry became the eighth player of all time to break the 2,000-yard rushing mark in a single season. Oh, and he led the league touchdowns as well. If he’s a 95 OVR, then no other halfback should be 90. One can only hope he gets his rightful 99 OVR in Madden NFL 22.

2 Nick Chubb - 96 OVR

Cleveland has been high on most experts’ picks to win the Super Bowl for the last two years. Their reasons usually involve deep conversations and Baker Mayfield, Odell Beckham Jr, Jarvis Landry, or one of those other players they shelled out the big bucks for.

When speaking of value, nobody even came close to being as valuable as Nick Chubb. The second-highest rated halfback in the game is working on a rookie contract and making next to nothing, all while not-so-quietly being the best player on his own offense.

1 Christian McCaffrey - 98 OVR

Look, nobody was offering much resistance to Christian McCaffrey becoming the only 99 OVR halfback in Madden NFL 21. He was only the third player in NFL history to get 1,000 rushing yards and 1,000 receiving yards in a single season during 2019, and he did so on a team that had zero identity.

He was injured for 2020, so it’s hard to say if the adjusted did the right thing by bumping him down a point. Either leave him at 99 OVR or take him off of the top ten. Gamers and Pathers fans are both hoping that McCaffrey returns to the 98-99 OVR score that he rightfully earned prior to going on injured reserve.

NEXT: Madden NFL 21: 10 Ultimate Team Tips For Beginners