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I don’t know how many of you play Madden on PS4/XBox or Madden Mobile, but I’m a pretty active player on Madden Mobile (hit me up if you have a league spot - username VolCane, 98 OVR). Madden Mobile has been revealing its all-decade teams on offense and defense this month. The offensive players were released last week, and no former Miami player was included as a buildable player or noted as honorable mention.
The offensive team:
QB: Drew Brees 2011 (grand master player)
QB: Philip Rivers 2010
RB: Marshawn Lynch 2012
WR: Dez Bryant 2014
TE: Greg Olsen 2015
FB: Kyle Juszczyk 2018
OT: Jason Peters 2013
C: Maurkice Pouncey 2014
OG: Mike Iupati 2015
Honorable mention: Matthew Stafford 2011, Kareem Hunt 2017, Cody Whitehair 2016, Patrick DiMarco 2015, Davante Adams 2018, Taylor Lewan 2016, Rodger Saffold III 2017, and Darren Waller 2019.
This week, the all-decade defense was released. The Dolphins had one former player listed as honorable mention, and as you could probably guess from the picture, that player was Olivier Vernon for his 2013 season. For the year, Vernon started 14 of 16 games, totaling 57 stops and 11.5 sacks, a career high. Despite strong production on the stat sheet, he didn’t earn either all-pro honors or a Pro Bowl invitation. Vernon’s first true honor came in 2016, his first season with the Giants, when he made second-team all pro.
The rest of the all-decade defense is as follows:
DE: J.J. Watt 2012 (grand master player)
CB: Richard Sherman 2013
CB: Charles Tillman 2012
DE: Justin Houston 2014
DT: Damon Harrison, Sr. 2016
LB: Clay Matthews, Jr. 2010
MLB: NaVorro Bowman 2013
S: Devin McCourty 2010
S: Harrison Smith 2017
Honorable mention: Akiem Hicks 2017, Chris Harris Jr 2016, Tyrann Mathieu 2015, Lorenzo Alexander 2016, Lavonte David 2013, and Vernon.
I thought that Cameron Wake would have been far and away the most likely to get the nod for Miami for his 2010 or 2012 seasons. Wake was first team all-pro in 2012, totaling a career high 15 sacks. However, Madden picked J.J. Watt for his 2012 performance as the team’s 100 OVR grand master player. Watt shared first team all-pro DE honors with Wake that year, but was the AP defensive player of the year with 20.5 sacks. Also, Madden included Wake as a 99 OVR draft master player in its last promo, so maybe they were looking to mix it up.
As far as other arguable candidates, if we’re going off league honors, Jake Long is Miami’s only other first-team all pro selection of the decade back in 2010. Brandon Fields, who earned second-team AP all-pro and 1st-team sporting news all-pro honors in 2013, could also be in play, if Madden ends up adding a special teams group/event after the all-decade defense is done. There are also several former players who made pro bowls during that time.
What are your thoughts on Vernon’s selection? Who else could’ve been a legitimate candidate for this Madden group?