EA Sports put six players in the Madden NFL 27 99 Club on Monday, and by PFN’s own accounting, half of them aren’t among the 10 best players in football.
The reveal kicked off Madden’s ratings week ahead of the Aug. 13 launch, handing 99s to Josh Allen, Myles Garrett, Matthew Stafford, Ja’Marr Chase, Jaxon Smith-Njigba and Trey McBride. PFN’s Top 100 for 2026 has Allen at No. 1 and Garrett at No. 3. It has Smith-Njigba 13th, Stafford 14th and McBride 21st.
Madden 27’s 99 Club Rewards One Season Instead of Three
That gap isn’t really a disagreement about talent. It’s a disagreement about the window.
“Out of those six players who got 99 overalls, three of them didn’t even finish in our top 10,” PFN analyst Jacob Infante said on Football Debate Club. “Trey McBride, the tight end for the Arizona Cardinals, didn’t even finish in our top 20.”
Madden grades the season that just ended. PFN grades three. Run Stafford through the longer lens and the case thins out fast. He finished 15th among quarterbacks in PFN’s QB Impact Scoring in 2023 and 19th in 2024 before shooting up to second in 2025, the year he won MVP and led the NFL in passing yards and passing touchdowns.
“Stafford, obviously coming off an MVP season, he was really good, but the previous two seasons, not necessarily 99 material,” Infante said. “So I guess if they’re going solely off of last year, it’s something to consider, but we use the three-year evaluation period. Stafford would not have gotten in that 99 overall.”
Two of the six clear every bar you can set. Garrett broke the NFL’s single-season sack record with 23, won Defensive Player of the Year and enters his third turn as a 99. Allen has been a top-10 quarterback in PFN’s QB Impact Scoring every season since 2020.
“I’d say the only two that definitively deserved it was Josh Allen and Myles Garrett,” Infante said. “Those two, I think they absolutely got right.”
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Chase is the nearest miss. He ranked fifth in WR Impact Scoring last season despite losing Joe Burrow for nine games, and he led all receivers in the metric in 2024. Infante would still shave a point or two. “I’d argue maybe just a little bit lower, maybe a 98 or 97, for being real sticklers about it.”
Penei Sewell Deserved a 99 Overall in Madden 27
Sewell sits at 98, the same number he climbed to during the Madden 26 season.
“I would have given Penei Sewell 99 overall,” Infante said. “He’s the best offensive lineman in the NFL, bar none in my opinion, at least.”
PFN ranked him fourth overall, the highest lineman on the list, off a 93.4 OL Impact Score that led every lineman in football in 2025. He also graded as the top lineman in the league in 2023, and he’s been a first-team All-Pro three years running. Sewell called last season far from his best ball, which sharpens the argument rather than weakening it. His down year still outgraded everyone else’s good one.
The convenient excuse is that linemen don’t get 99s. That excuse died last summer. Lane Johnson launched Madden 26 at 99, becoming just the fifth offensive tackle ever to do it, joining Jonathan Ogden, Trent Williams, Walter Jones and Willie Roaf. EA opened that door 12 months ago, then closed it on the tackle with the better recent résumé.
The receiver math is stranger still. Smith-Njigba won Offensive Player of the Year and led the league with 1,793 receiving yards, and his 93.7 WR Impact Score ranks ninth among all wide receiver seasons since 1999. Puka Nacua’s 96.3 ranks third in that span, led the NFL last year and put him fifth in PFN’s Top 100, eight spots ahead of Smith-Njigba. One of them got a 99. It wasn’t the one PFN’s numbers preferred.
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Ratings move all season, and Sewell will almost certainly get there by November, especially with the move to left tackle putting him on the blind side. The question is why a player who has been the most consistent lineman in football for three years has to keep earning a number that gets handed to breakout seasons on arrival.
