By Sam Gardner, FOXSports.com
A murder charge will almost certainly keep Aaron Hernandez off the football field for the foreseeable future, and over the weekend, thousands of fans exchanged their Hernandez jerseys for those of other New England Patriots players at the team store in Foxboro, Mass.
But at least until Monday, the former Patriots and Florida Gators tight end — who, these days, is donning a prison jumpsuit — could still be seen sporting a jersey in the virtual world.
According to CBS Sports, however, video game maker EA Sports has even put the kibosh on that, removing Hernandez from its August release of Madden NFL 25 and Tuesday’s release of NCAA Football 14.
Hernandez’s inclusion in NCAA Football 14 first made waves after an image of a Hernandez achievement “card” from the game started making the rounds on Twitter:
That’s unfortunate RT @Adam__OS: WELP RT @LiterallyLowe: Oh. Oh dear #NCAAFootball. http://t.co/qVibGlPBnp
— Brandon (@TeamSpeedKills) July 8, 2013
In its statement to CBS Sports, EA Sports clarified that Hernandez could not be removed from the initial release of the game, due to the timing of the game’s production, but noted that he would be replaced during a future update.
“We made a decision to remove Aaron Hernandez from Madden NFL 25 and NCAA Football 14. Because NCAA Football 14 was finalized prior to our decision, Hernandez’ image still appears in the Nike Skills Trainer,” the spokesperson said. “However, he is not in the game, and anyone who unlocks that particular Nike Skills Trainer reward will receive an Alex Smith Ultimate Team player item instead. The image of Hernandez will be removed via a Title Update in the near future.”
Fortunately for fans who still — for some reason — want to play as Hernandez, there is a solution. You can always just play Madden NFL 13 instead.
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