Last year, to celebrate the entry of a former local high school football standout — Dalton High School graduate and now-Detroit Lion Jahmyr Gibbs — into the NFL, I did something a little different.
I bought the Madden NFL 24 video game by Electronic Arts Sports, loaded it up on my Xbox Series X, and ran an experiment.
Since virtual Jahmyr Gibbs was representing the real Gibbs in the game, blazing past virtual defenders or virtually juking them out of their virtual cleats, I wanted to see what would happen if I “simulated” his rookie season.
In other words, loading up the game’s franchise mode, but, instead of playing the games myself, letting the game’s computer take over to spit out what its best guess on Gibbs’ rookie season statistics would be. Then, I sat back, watched, and documented those results in a column last year.
So, with another former local high school football standout set to suit up for a rookie season — North Murray High grad Ladd McConkey, now a wide receiver for the Los Angeles Chargers — I ran the idea back.
The former Mountaineer star who helped the University of Georgia win two national championships is, to quote EA Sports’ slogan, “in the game,” so I opened up the new version of the game, Madden NFL 25, opted to take control of Ladd’s L.A. head coach Jim Harbaugh in the game’s franchise mode, pressed “sim to end of season” and waited through a lengthy loading screen.
The results?
Despite virtual Ladd McConkey being rated a 74 overall (out of 100) as a rookie, the game projects McConkey to make a pretty solid splash in year one.
The third-highest rated receiver in the video game on the Chargers — behind Joshua Palmer and D.J. Chark — McConkey led the team in receiving yards and touchdowns.
The former Mountaineer, or, at least his virtual counterpart, snagged 67 passes for 1,090 receiving yards and eight touchdowns, playing all 17 games and developing into Charger quarterback Justin Herbert’s go-to guy.
The game is pretty confident that the speedy receiver’s game will transition pretty seamlessly into the NFL, despite McConkey never totaling more than 762 receiving yards and seven receiving scores during a season with the Bulldogs.
In fact, the second round pick in April’s NFL Draft ranked right up there with some of the NFL’s best in this season statistic simulation.
McConkey came in at ninth in the NFL in receiving yards — Dallas star CeeDee Lamb led with 1,585 — and tied for sixth in receiving touchdowns — Kansas City wideout Rashee Rice had 13.
In virtual McConkey’s virtual NFL season debut, the receiver had three catches for 36 yards in a 20-6 loss for the Chargers to the Las Vegas Raiders.
The relatively-inauspicious start for McConkey continued through the first few games, although he caught his first virtual touchdown in a week two win over the Carolina Panthers.
The simulated McConkey really began to hit his stride in week 7.
Starting with a win over the Arizona Cardinals, McConkey caught touchdowns in four of five virtual games and caught for at least 89 yards in three of those games, including the first two 100-yard games of his career.
In a week 13 game for Los Angeles at the Atlanta Falcons, the first time McConkey is scheduled to play as a pro in his home state, video game Ladd shined, catching a season-high seven passes for 111 yards and a touchdown in front of what was surely a group of virtual fans traveling from Chatsworth.
Despite the breakout rookie season from McConkey, the virtual Chargers struggled late in the season, losing their last three games to finish 8-9 and to miss out on the playoffs.
McConkey and the Chargers sat on the sidelines as the Baltimore Ravens were crowned the virtual Super Bowl LIX Champs, as Lamar Jackson led the Ravens to a 28-17 win over the Minnesota Vikings in the big game.
Last year’s simulation of Gibbs’ rookie season shorted the real Gibbs’ real-life performance.
After the game projected Gibbs to run for 772 yards and six scores, the former Dalton Catamount surpassed that with 945 yards and 10 touchdowns in his real rookie season for the Lions.
Madden NFL 25 has set a higher bar for McConkey to clear with his real-life performance.
Both for his rookie season, and for his whole career.
After finishing up the one-year simulation, I noticed there was a button to “sim forward 10 years.”
Well, why not?
After hitting it and waiting for what felt like an eternity, I found a Ladd McConkey still playing 10 years into the league. A great sign.
So I did it again.
Another eternity later, and the game spat out its best estimation for the complete NFL career of the former North Murray standout.
According to this super official and scientific experiment, Ladd McConkey will play 13 years in the NFL.
He’ll spend four years with L.A., move to Denver, Green Bay and Cleveland, and, poetically, sign for one final season with the Chargers before retiring in 2036.
He’ll cross the 1,000-yard plateau in five separate seasons, culminating in a career-best year of 2033, when he caught 97 passes for 1,155 yards and 13 touchdowns for the Packers. That season netted virtual McConkey the 2033 NFL Offensive Player of the Year award. Virtual Ladd’s production went down pretty quickly afterward though, as he signed with the Browns only to total a career-worst 209 receiving yards in 2034. The curse of the Browns even apparently extends into 10 years in the virtual future.
After a couple more seasons, the final back with the Chargers, McConkey retired.
A 13-year NFL career, with an offensive player of the year award to boot, might have once seemed unthinkable for the unheralded recruit who made a national name for himself at Georgia and became an NFL Draft Pick.
But there have been plenty of people to doubt Ladd McConkey before.
EA Madden NFL decided not to become one of them.
Daniel Mayes is the editor of the Dalton Daily Citizen. Write to him at danielmayes@dailycitizen.news