About
The Madden Curse is a superstition associated with getting on the cover of any Madden NFL game in the series, similar to the Campbell’s Chunky Soup Curse or the Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx. Players who make the cover often times suffer a serious injury, have a decline in performance, and/or their team does poorly the following season.
Origin
The Madden NFL series, formerly known as John Madden Football, is an American Football video game series developed by Electronic Arts (aka, EA) that started in 1988. Prior to 1998, John Madden himself was only featured on the cover of each yearly installment of the series. In 1998, John Madden would again be on the cover of Madden NFL 99. However, in the PAL version of the game, San Francisco 49ers’ running back, Garrison Hearst made the cover. After having the best year in his professional career and breaking several franchise records, Hearst twisted his ankle in the Divisional round of the NFL Playoffs against the Atlanta Falcons. The following year, Barry Sanders, running back of the Detroit Lions, would appear on the cover of Madden NFL 2000 along with John Madden, while Dorsey Levens, running back for the Green Bay Packers, would appear on the cover of the PAL version. Before the 1999 season even began, Barry Sanders abruptly retired, leaving the Lions without their star player, and the Packers would fail to make the playoffs despite Levens running for 1,034 yards. The suffering of players and teams associated with making the Madden cover has not go unnoticed by the public. They determined that the Madden cover is “cursed”, thus The Madden Curse was born.
Spread
As the Madden NFL series’ popularity grew to astronomical heights and more players and teams languish after appearing on the Madden cover, The Madden Curse has become a part of video game and sports lore. In 2007, Electronic Arts decided to feature San Diego Chargers running back, LaDainian Tomlinson, for the cover of Madden NFL 08. This sparked outrage among Chargers and Tomlinson fans to the point they created the site, SaveLTfromMadden.com, to voice their disdain for the decision. Tomlinson would later turn down the offer citing contract negotiations and Tennessee Titans’ quarterback, Vince Young, would make the cover instead. Starting in 2010, Electronic Arts allowed fans to vote on who gets to be on the Madden cover. The following year, Electronic Arts began running a bracket-style tournament where fans vote on which player makes the cover. Fans would commonly vote against players they like and/or plays for their favorite team to avoid the “curse” while voting for players they didn’t like and/or plays for a rival team.
Notable Examples
Garrison Hearst, San Francisco 49ers running back (1999 PAL cover): The first NFL player to ever appear on a Madden cover, Hearst broke his ankle and was out of football for two seasons.
Daunte Culpepper, Minnesota Vikings quarterback (2002 cover): A year after he made the cover, he threw 23 interceptions. He also broke the record for most fumbles in a season. He would later blow out both knees in 2005 and 2006. In 2008, he was a member of the 0-16 Detroit Lions.
Ray Lewis, Baltimore Ravens linebacker (2005 cover): After having at least one interception in every season, he recorded zero the year of his appearance. He also suffered an wrist injury which caused him to go on the IR in Week 15.
Shaun Alexander, Seattle Seahawks running back (2007 cover): After winning the Most Valuable Player the year before, he got injured and had a very down year. His career was over due to lack of production a season later.
Peyton Hillis, Cleveland Browns (2012 cover): The Madden NFL 12 cover athlete was determined by a March Madness-style bracket tournament containing one player from every team, with fans voting for players in one-on-one matchups. This culminated in the cover being graced by Hillis, making him only the second Madden cover athlete whose team didn’t make the playoffs the previous season (the first was Vince Young, who’d just won the Rookie of the Year award). A few people have theorized that Hillis gained a lot of his votes from people who didn’t want the guy on their team to be on the cover, due to the curse being well known by this point. And the first indication of the curse was? Hillis sat out the Browns’ Week 3 game with strep throat. He also voluntarily sat out Week 5. He also became a giant asshole.