LA Chargers: Five overrated and underrated Madden 21 rankings
Overrated: Desmond King, 87
Desmond King’s rating is truly confounding to me. King’s original Madden 20 score was an 86. After the worst season of his career, King went up a point to an 87. That isn’t an exaggeration either.
King was terrific with special teams in 2018. He completely fell off in that regard in 2020. Allowing a 133.4 passer rating from opposing quarterbacks was about 50 points worse than his 2018 score. Receivers caught the ball about 12% more often against King in 2019 as well.
King is still one of the better slot corner talents in the league, but it’s hard to say that 2019 wasn’t a down year. The signing of Chris Harris is another factor that muddies the waters. It won’t be until Week 1 that we actually figure out what King’s real position is because Harris is replacing him at slot corner.
Sure, some have made guesses about him taking a dimebacker role or just patrolling the field in general as a defensive wild card, but we really don’t know what it officially is until Gus Bradley tells us.
The ceiling and potential for King is still very high, but I can’t ignore his poor performance in 2019. The good news for King going forward is that the Chargers will hopefully at least start the season with a healthy secondary. Derwin James starting in Week 1 again would be great for the team, and hopefully, Nasir Adderley is able to get some playing time as well after injuries derailed his 2019 campaign.
King is still a solid corner, but he deserves to be bumped down a few points this year with a questionable 2019 and an uncertain role going forward.
What it should be: 84