Ken Norton Jr. Madden Career 1992-2000 - Peak 92 OVR

Ken Norton Jr. carried a famous name and made it his own. The son of the heavyweight champion who once beat Muhammad Ali, he played linebacker at UCLA and went to Dallas in the second round in 1988, then did something no football player had ever done: he won three straight Super Bowls. Two came with the Cowboys, after the 1992 and 1993 seasons, and the third came in San Francisco, where he signed in 1994 and won XXIX, making him the first man to win three in a row.

Madden rated him a strong, physical starting linebacker throughout, with a peak around 92 for his 1993 Dallas season and steady numbers in the 80s during his 49ers years. The awareness rating the game gave him climbed into the high 90s as he aged, which fit: Norton was a smart, sure tackler who piled up more than a thousand of them across a thirteen-year career, and the grade reflected a player who was always in the right place.

He made three Pro Bowls and a first-team All-Pro, spent seven seasons in San Francisco, and later turned his football mind to coaching, running defenses as a coordinator with the Seahawks and Raiders. Norton was never the flashiest linebacker in the league, but he was one of the most decorated, a three-ring man across two different dynasties. Madden's grades marked him as exactly what he was: a very good starter who always seemed to be standing wherever the ball ended up.