Sunday, October 01, 2006

EA Sports: It’s in the game, they’re on the shelf!

Everyone has heard about the Sports Illustrated cover curse, a famous athlete finally achieves sports immortality by becoming featured on the cover of the most popular sports magazine in the world. The next thing he knows, injury strikes and the career takes a sideways step during convalescence.

Well, the SI curse is old school; welcome to the digital era and something that is starting to worry NFL players just a little bit. The Madden curse, yet another NFL star has suffered an injury after becoming featured as the cover photo athlete on the Madden 07 game box.

Shaun Alexander, star running back of the Seattle Seahawks is on the indefinite injury list, due to a fracture in his foot. Alexander’s team mates may be a tad superstitious with Alexander’s departure from the line up, the Seahawks lost and lost big to the Chicago Bears on Sunday night.

The Madden Curse goes back to 2000 and a cover featuring Barry Sanders, before the game had even hit the store shelves Sanders had announced his retirement from pro football. 2002, brought Dante Culpepper to the cover and then off to the medical room with knee problems, that after struggling all season long.

Marshall Faulk was selected for the 2003 cover, who promptly suffered an ankle injury and failed to rush for 1000 yards and never did again. The 2004 game belonged to Michael Vick; the star Falcons quarterback who fractured a fibula on the day after the game was delivered to the store.

2005 was a curse free year, but 2006 brought misery to Philadelphia, where cover star Donovan McNabb had a horrible year and suffered a hernia in the first game and never regained his form.

With Alexander adding to the legend of the Madden curse, it will be interesting to see what they do in 2007, there could be more than a few players asking to take a pass on the privilege of sharing the marquee with big John!

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