Perhaps the most highly anticipated video game every year is the Madden NFL series from EA Sports. 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. Along with the game's popularity has grown a huge pro gaming industry, and now the world's top Madden players can make a living playing in tournaments or even just online. There is no other anuual release of any tyoe that demands the attention of Madden -- and the devotion, as bceomes clear when thousands of people take the day off work.
You might also think that players are honored and delighted to be featured on the game's cover. Since Madden gave up the game's cover appearance starting with the 1999 installment for a different annual cover athlete, that player has suffered from poor play or injury, leading to the belief that there is a Madden NFL curse.
In the first week of the 2009 season, the Madden curse had already reared it's ugly head. Madden 10 was the first one to feature two cove athletes instead of just one. Defending Super Bowl Champion safety of the Pittsburgh Steelers Troy Polamalu goes head-to-head with one of the men he covered in the big game last February, Arizona Cardinals wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald. Well, Polomalu got hurt in the very first game he played after being put on the cover of Madden, a medial collateral ligament sprain. He didn't return.
One would think that everyone in the league would have learned to avoid Madden by now. When EA Sports comes calling, it's probably in everybody's best interest to decline the offer regardless of how prestigious and financially rewarding the opportunity might be. As history has shown, going on the Madden NFL cover is almost guaranteed to affect a player, and probably his team, negatively.
Notable instances of the Madden NFL 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.
That evidence is hard to refute. So, how will Drew Brees fare against the msyterious and enignmatic "Madden Curse?"
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