The Bittersweetness of a Madden Cover Appearance

The release of Madden 11 will be one of the most hyped and anticipated events in 2010. Madden has been on the scene for 21 years, and pretty much everyone who is a fan of football or video games has picked it up and played. 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. 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. 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.

 

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. Ever since 1999 when John Madden started putting players on the cover instead of himself, those players seem to either perform badly or suffer serious injury.

 

The Madden curse made it's mark again in 2009. For the first time in the series' history, two players graced the cover of Madden NFL 10. 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. Troy Polomalu was injured in the Steelers' very first regular season game against the Titans. He missed the rest of the seson.

 

You'd think that players and coaches would have learned about the Madden curse 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.

 

Some Hisrotical Examples:

 

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: 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.

 

The evidence is stacking up. Whether it's just the impact on your attitude after being featured, whether it just effects your concentration in the preseason and training camp, or whether it's something more...mysterious, who knows.