Madden 25's Marvin Harrison Jr. looks like a create-a-player

Despite all the technology that new consoles and Madden 25 have at their disposal, every year we get players that look absolutely nothing like their real-life counterparts. A few years ago in Madden 20, Greg Olsen and Philip Lindsay were among the completely unidentifiable player models. It's worse because pro football players are some of the most easily recognized people on the planet.

This is even more true of Arizona Cardinals first-round pick Marvin Harrison Jr. He is not only a famous NFL player, he's the son of a Hall of Fame NFL player. Um, let me unveil Madden 25's Marvin Harrison Jr. player model from the NFL draft:

That dude doesn't even look like anybody Marvin Harrison Jr. knows, let alone like actual Marvin Harrison Jr. This likeness has gone viral today, and not because of anything good. I'm afraid it gets worse than this. Check out this disrespectful mess:

This one is borderline problematic. It not only doesn't look like Harrison, it barely looks like an actual human being. Why is his facial expression a blank, soulless stare? The first one was just so off it made me and much of the football-loving internet chuckle. As a Black man, this image makes me uncomfortable.

I know EA Sports didn't mean to make Harrison look like a disturbing caricature. There's no sense in doing so. All it creates is a PR nightmare. But there it is. I'm hoping they fix this soon. There are players whose likeness they can phone in and no one other than their family is going to notice or care. Ultimate Team is full of guys whose card doesn't even have an image on it.

But if you're going to claim that if it's in the game, it's in the game, you gotta do better than this. These horrifying visages are not in actual NFL football games, thank goodness.