Score one for the over-30 set. In an online voting clash between reigning NFL MVP Adrian Peterson and long-since-retired legend RB Barry Sanders, age has trumped beauty. Sanders will grace the cover of EA’s Madden 25 when it hits store shelves in late summer. The 44-year-old easily beat out the 28-year-old Peterson with 58 percent of the 700,000 votes on ESPN’s SportsNation. A whopping 40 million votes were cast overall.
Peterson had previously won the “new school” bracket of the voting by beating Houston Texans running back Arian Foster in the semifinals, Washington Redskins quarterback Robert Griffin III, New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski and Philadelphia Eagles running back LeSean McCoy. Sanders was actually one of the first athletes to be featured on the cover, appearing in blurry background form behind John Madden for the Madden 2000 game.
Now about that Madden cover jinx: Does it affect retired players? If so, the golf course just became that much more dangerous.
