Dez Bryant Madden Career 2011-2021 - Peak 96 OVR

Dez Bryant came out of Oklahoma State a consensus All-American, a first-round pick in 2010 with rare ability to win a contested ball, and he grew into one of the most productive receivers of his era. He strung together three straight 1,200-yard seasons and peaked in 2014 with 88 catches, 1,320 yards and a league-leading 16 touchdowns, a first-team All-Pro at the height of his powers.

The Madden card rose right with him. He climbed from a rookie 80 up through the 80s and to a 96 peak in Madden NFL 16, the number matching the 16-touchdown monster he had become, the throw-up-the-X celebration a weekly event. That 2014 season also produced the play that haunts Cowboys fans, the fourth-down catch against Green Bay in the divisional round overturned as an incompletion, the infamous Dez caught it that the rulebook said he did not.

The peak did not hold. A foot fracture early in 2015 took something off his game, and the production and the card declined together, the explosiveness never fully returning before Dallas released him in 2018. An Achilles tear on his first practice after signing with New Orleans finished the comeback before it started. Bryant's climb to a 96 and the injury-driven slide after are the story of a receiver whose ceiling and whose health topped out in the same season.