For eight straight years, the Madden Curse has never failed.
Last year, it struck Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, who suffered a sports hernia in the first game of the season. In 2004, it hit Ray Lewis, who had the first season of his career without an interception. The Baltimore Ravens linebacker also missed his team's last game of the season with a broken wrist.
In 2003, the curse got Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick. He fractured his right fibula in a preseason game against the Ravens and missed the majority of the year. And before that, it was Marshall Faulk of the St. Louis Rams, who was hampered by ankle and foot injuries for a good portion of the 2002 season. Faulk, who had 5-straight 1,000-yard years, would never again rush for 1,000 yards in a season after being victimized by the Madden Curse.
In addition to being plagued by injuries and plain old bad luck, what do all of these players have in common? Each appeared on the cover of the John Madden NFL video game the year of his misfortune-stricken season. This rather disturbing trend has come to be known as simply the "Madden Curse." Its existence is undeniable.
The 2006 version of the Madden Curse struck just this week, when Seattle Seahawks running back Shaun Alexander became its most recent victim. The 2005 NFL Most Valuable Player who graces the cover of Madden '07, Alexander sustained a left foot fracture in Seattle's win on Sunday against the New York Giants. He is expected to be out for at least a few weeks.
Even before his injury, Alexander was performing relatively poorly in the first three games of the 2006 season, rushing for just 187 yards and averaging 2.9 yards per carry, well below his 2005 average of 5.1. Alexander is just the latest in a long string of cover boys to be jinxed.
But the Madden Curse isn't limited to the superstar on its cover. It can ruin the player's team as well. Last year it didn't affect just McNabb; it dragged down his entire team. Wide receiver Terrell Owens tore apart the Eagles with his antics: he repeatedly made derogatory comments about the Eagles and McNabb in particular, feuded with coaches and players and got into a fight with Hugh Douglas, a former player turned Eagles employee.
In November 2005, Owens was suspended for four games for conduct detrimental to the team. The Eagles deactivated him for the rest of the season after he served his suspension. After playing in nine games, McNabb elected to have season-ending surgery to repair his injury. Without McNabb and Owens, the Eagles stumbled to a woeful 6-10 finish in 2005 - just bad enough for last place in the NFC East. This ending was especially disappointing for a franchise that had advanced to the last four conference championships and lost Super Bowl XXXIX by only three points the previous season.
The list of Madden cover-stars befallen by misfortune goes on and on, all the way back to the 2000 version of the game, when John Madden himself was replaced on the cover by current NFL playmakers. In fact, the Madden Curse has struck in some form every year since then. In 2001, cover boy Daunte Culpepper led his Minnesota Vikings to a rather disappointing 4-7 record before having season-ending surgery on a sprained left knee.
In the year prior, Tennessee Titans running back Eddie George had a solid season, but turned the ball over in a divisional playoff game against Baltimore. This costly mistake ultimately ended Tennessee's season. Even the great Barry Sanders, the Detroit Lions running back who shared the cover with Madden in the 2000 version of the game, abruptly retired before the season even began.
Granted, injuries in the NFL are common. They are one of the reasons NFL players are guaranteed significantly less pay than their counterparts in other major sports. But for injuries and so many other misfortunate events to strike the Madden cover stars so consistently in the same season each athlete appears on the game's front (Vick, in fact, broke his arm the day after the game hit the shelves), something insidious must be in the works. To deny that the Madden Curse exists is to deny that all the members of the Dallas Cowboys are mentally stable (wait, bad example). Whether or not the supernatural is at work here, Madden cover stars are jinxed.
My point is this: LaDainian Tomlinson or Chad Johnson or Peyton Manning (or whoever becomes the unquestionable star of the 2006 season), will need to stop and think before agreeing to having his picture taken for the cover of Madden 2008.
