Madden Curse

The Madden Curse is believed to befall players that appear on the EA Sports game cover Madden NFL. It is believed that players selected to appear on Madden video game covers have a high probability of injury or poor performance in the season following their appearance on the cover. Players other than John Madden himself first appeared on the video game covers in 1999. Prior to that, Madden had been on all covers since the video game first came on the market eleven years before.

1. Garrison Hearst - 1999, Hearst was the first Madden cover-star following his statistically best season. Early in the following season, he broke his ankle and did not return to the field until 2001. http://fantom1979.homeip.net/madden.html
2. Dorsey Levens - 2000, Levens appeared on the cover of the European version of Madden and the following year the Green Bay Packers used him only as a back up before releasing him in 2001.
3. Eddie George - 2001, George suffered an injury to his toe the following year after the cover shoot which bothered him for the rest of his career. He also was responsible for a fumble during the playoffs which caused the Tennessee Titans to lose.
4. Daunte Culpepper - 2002, After mindblowing statistics the year before, Culpepper had problems with interceptions during the first half of the 2003 season until he was sidelined with a back injury. He has not been able to find a stable starting job in the NFL since.
5. Marshall Faulk - 2003, Following back to back Super Bowl season successes, Faulk's injured ankle prevented the St. Louis Rams from making the playoffs the following year.
6. Michael Vick - 2004, Vick was injured during the preseason and was only able to participate in 5 games alone during regular season.
7. Donovan McNabb - 2006, In the previous season, McNabb led the Philadelphia Eagles to a close Super Bowl loss to the New England Patriots. After his cover appearance he played most of the season with a sports hernia which hindered his play until the injury was further aggravated and required surgery.
8. Shaun Alexander - 2007, Following a season where he rushed for over 1,800 yards, Alexander was not even able to break 1,000 due to a foot injury.
9. Vince Young – 2008, He appeared on the cover of Madden in 2008. Though not having a “bad” season, his stats for that season dropped and the amount of interceptions went up to 17. He remained relatively healthy but was very erratic and even lost his starting job to Kerry Collins. http://www.snopes.com/sports/football/maddencurse.asp
10. Brett Favre - 2009, Graced the Madden NFL 2009 cover. Though not missing any game, his team lost to San Francisco, Seattle and Denver. Favre reverted to making bad plays and his team barely won against Bufallo. His quarterback rating failed to post above 62.
11. Troy Palomalu and Larry Fitzgerald - 2010, The cover of Madden NFL 2010 is graced by these 2 athletes. Polamalu was injured in the first season opener and missed the next 4 games while Fitzgerald started well but had to miss the playoffs due to a rib injury.