With only a day left in the "Madden NFL 13" round of 16 cover vote, Ray Rice has retaken the lead over Drew Brees in their back-and-forth matchup. Brees took a slight advantage into the weekend, but Ray Rice fans came out strong on Sunday, and now Rice has jumped in front of the Saints quarterback by a 50.3 percent to 49.7 percent margin. To break the numbers down even further, that's less than a two thousand vote lead heading into the final hours. Talk about going down to the wire.
In other Sweet 16 news, it looks like Arian Foster's string of upsets is about to come to an end. After taking out both Andre Johnson and Tim Tebow, Foster is now getting pummeled by Calvin Johnson, with Megatron collecting a whopping 73 percent of the vote. Cam Newton is still the only player getting more votes than Johnson, leading me to believe we are going to see the two young stars square off in the finals.
Another player who continues to draw big numbers is Rob Gronkowski. Gronk is doing whatever he can to help his own cause, including the creation of a new video where he spikes a melon to show what he'd do to his round of 16 opponent, Jared Allen, then in true gamer fashion, shouts, "Boomshackalacka!"
Looks like if anyone can take down Megatron in the right bracket, it's Gronk, especially if next round he makes some cool, smashing up Transformers video to boost his candidacy.
Another guy to watch out for is Aaron Rodgers. I thought he had a good shot at winning it all last year, but this year, his support actually seems to be stronger. Rodgers is destroying Marshawn Lynch right now, collecting 64 percent of the vote, and should make for tough competition as he faces the winner of the Ray Rice/Drew Brees battle in the Elite Eight.
Don't like the results so far? Head to the official SportsNation "Madden NFL 13" cover page and cast your vote before it's too late.