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. In order to get shots of all the rookies in their new jerseys, the Madden development team shows up to the annual NFL entry draft. 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.
In the first week of the 2009 season, the Madden curse had already reared it's ugly head. For the first time in the series' history, two players graced the cover of Madden NFL 10. Both teams from SB 43 are acknowledged, with Troy Polomalu of the Steelers and Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals. In the Steelers' first game of the season against the Tennessee Titans, Polamalu suffered a medial collateral ligament sprain while blocking a field goal. He didn't return.
You'd think that the NFL would have leraned it's leason 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. Histroy has taught us that the negative effect of being on the Madden cover, for whatever scientific or non-scientific reason, is a real thing.
Notable instances of the Madden NFL curse:
2002: Second-year quarterback Daunte Culpepper graced the cover for 2002, but was only able to follow-up an NFC Championship appearance the previous year by missing the final five games of the 2001 season with a knee injury as the Vikings missed the playoffs with a 5-11 record.
2003: As the 2003 cover athlete, St. Louis Rams running back Marshall Faulk had an ankle injury all season and failed to reach 1,000 rushing yards for the first time since 1996, while the Rams team went 7-9 and missed the playoffs.
2004: The Madden Curse struck for the third year in a row in 2003, when star QB Michael Vick missed the entire season due to a fractured fibula he got in a preseason game.
2006: Donovan McNabb was featured on the cover of Madden 06, and in week one of the 2005 season, you guessed it, Donovan McNabb suffered a hernia. It plagued ihim all season, and he eventually missed the last 7 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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