The Curse of the Madden Cover Appearance

The release of Madden 11 will be one of the most hyped and anticipated events in 2010. For more than 20 years, this franchise has been an undeniably big hit. The team behind Madden even attends the NFL Draft every year in order to get headshots of rookies in their NFL uniforms as early as humanly possible. Television programs pitting some of the most talented Madden NFL players in tournaments are shown around the world. Millions of people take release day off work every year, and a Madden Holiday is as close as the game industry is likely to ever get to it's own national holiday.

 

You might also think that players are honored and delighted to be featured on the game's cover. In 1999, John Madden relinquished the cover of each game to a player...and since then, those players have ahd notortiously rough years.

 

Last year was no exception to the Madden curse, and it made it's mark in the very first week of the regular season. Madden 10 was the first one to feature two cove athletes instead of just one. It's a classic matchup that re-lives the drama of Super Bowl 43; Larry Fitzgerald of the Cardinals and Troy Polomalu of the championship Steelers. Well, Polomalu got hurt in the very first game he played after being put on the cover of Madden, a medial collateral ligament sprain. Without their defensive captain, the Steelers struggled, ceding the AFC North division title to the Bengals.

 

You'd think that players and coaches would have learned about the Madden curse by now. Players a) don't need the money and b) are quite superstitious in the best of times, so you'd think they'd just decline the offer from EA sports. If you don't believe in it yet, just take a look at all the historical evidence of a very real "Madden Curse.".

 

The History of the Madden Curse:

 

2002: QB Daunte Culpepper was honored with a Madden 02 cover appearance folliowing his team's final four appearance in 2000. He followed this up by missing the last five games of the 2001 season with a hurt knee, and his team missed the playoffs.

 

2003: Marking the beginning of the end of the "Greatest Show On Turf", Marshall Faulk of the Rams failed to rush for 1,000 yards in the 2001 season (for the first time since 1996) following his appearance on the cover of Madden 03 and his subsequent nagging ankle injury.

 

2004: Atlanta Falcons franchise QB (and a Madden player's favorite QB at the time) missed the entire 2003 season after gracing the cover of Madden 04. His team finished 5-11 (missing the playoffs of course) without him.

 

2006: Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb was coming off a Super Bowl appearance, in which his team lost to the New England Patriots. But as the Madden NFL 06 cover athlete, his 2005 was destined for disaster and he suffered a sports hernia in the first game and ended up shutting down for the last seven games of the season.

 

You might not be superstitious, but it's hard to deny the evidence.