If EA Sports Calls, Don't Answer

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. It's right there for the annual NFL Draft, creating shots of players on their new teams almost instantly. The game has become so popular that tournaments where professionals play head-to-head for loads of money have made it onto television for our viewing pleasure. And people are known to come up with every excuse in the book in order to get out of work on the very day the game releases - making it as close to a national holiday as the video game industry is likely to get.

 

Amidts the excitement of the game's release, it can be slightly bittersweet for some players, namely those who get rated badly and, above all, the one who graces 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. Two players made their way onto the cover of Madden 10 for the first time ever. 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. 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.".

 

Some Hisrotical Examples:

 

2002: After making it to the NFC with the Vikings in 2000, quaerterback Daunte Culpepper missed the final five games of the 2001 season (after being fatured on the cover) leading his team to a record of 5-11.

 

2003: After gracing the cover of Madden 03, RB Marshall Faulk played the whole 2002 season with a hurt ankle and missed the 1,000 rushing yard mark for the first time in 6 years while his team rounded out the season with a 7-9 record, which wasn;t good enough for a playoff appearance.

 

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: 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.