Peyton Hillis Madden Career 2010-2015 - Peak 91 OVR

Denver spent a seventh-round pick on Hillis in 2008, the 227th selection, out of Arkansas. He barely factored there before a trade to Cleveland handed him the ball, and in 2010 he ran through it: more than 1,100 rushing yards and 13 total touchdowns for a bad Browns team, a downhill, stiff-arming style that made him a folk hero in northeast Ohio.

That season put him on the ballot for the Madden NFL 12 cover, and fans voted him past Michael Vick with 66 percent in the final. The cover is where the story turns. Injuries, a contract dispute and a bout of strep throat sank his 2011, and he spent his last seasons bouncing through Kansas City, Tampa Bay and New York before retiring in 2015 over concussion concerns.

His rating tells the same rise and fall. A 76 rookie number in the 2008 edition jumped to 84, then to a career-peak 91 in the 2011 game that adorned the cover, before dropping to 73 by the 2014 edition. In January 2023 Hillis was hospitalized in critical condition after pulling his son and niece from the water off a Florida beach, and he recovered.