Rock Hill native, South Pointe alum to join ’99 club’ in Madden 21, media reports say

A Rock Hill native has just joined one of the most exclusive groups in the game.

Stephon Gilmore, the New England Patriots defensive back who was the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year in 2019, will be among the few players in football video game Madden 21 to earn a “99 overall” rating, reports NBCSports.com. The rating is the highest any player can receive in the video game.

The South Pointe grad and University of South Carolina star will join Carolina Panthers running back Christian McCaffrey, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes and potentially others, whose ratings haven’t been officially announced yet.

Gilmore notched 58 total tackles, one fumble recovery, six interceptions (tied for the league’s best), two touchdowns and a league-leading 20 pass deflections in 2019. Throughout his DPOY campaign, he was praised by current and former players around the league — one of whom (Darrelle Revis) tweeted that Gilmore was “by far the best corner in the game right now.”

Gilmore has spent much of the spring and summer in Charlotte, training and spending time with his family.

Madden 21 is set to release Aug. 25.

This story was originally published July 14, 2020 at 9:21 AM.

Alex Zietlow

The Herald

Alex Zietlow writes about sports and the ways in which they intersect with life in York, Chester and Lancaster counties for The Herald, where he has been an editor and reporter since August 2019. Zietlow has won nine S.C. Press Association awards in his career, including First Place finishes in Feature Writing, Sports Enterprise Writing and Education Beat Reporting. He also received two Top-10 awards in the 2021 APSE writing contest and was nominated for the 2022 U.S. Basketball Writers Association’s Rising Star award for his coverage of the Winthrop men’s basketball team.