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Poll: Is the Madden Curse Real? (1 Viewer)

Is the Madden Curse Real?

  • Obviously

    Votes: 3 50.0%

  • Lame

    Votes: 3 50.0%

  • If Fitz goes too

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • yes/no

    Votes: 0 0.0%
  • Total voters
    6
Heck, even Favre was hurt last year - and they put him on the cover because he was retiring. he did play through it, but still.

 
Remember that time when Eddie George was on the cover and then he totally wound up bobbling a pass in the playoffs?

 
The Madden curse only strikes once and it was all confused when it saw two people on the cover so it only hit one of them because that is what it has done forever. So that means that Fitz is going to have a stupendous year now.

Fitz owner

 
Anyone know how one would go about putting their wife on the Madden cover?

 
yes to the people that cant read between the lines. Palamalu's one handed INT was insane. PITT is going to suffer without him!

 
From Snopes

2000 Barry Sanders. Sanders didn't play a single down during the 1999-2000 season (or ever again).2001 Eddie George. George enjoyed his best season ever (in terms of yards gained rushing and touchdowns scored) in 2000, he bobbled a pass (that was subsequently intercepted and returned for a touchdown) in the Titans' season-ending Divisional Playoff loss to the Baltimore Ravens, and the following season, hampered by injuries, he saw his rushing average sink to an all-time low.2002 Daunte Culpepper. Culpepper suffered a knee injury and missed the last five games of the year (while Minnesota finished the season a dismal 5-11).2003 Marshall Faulk. Faulk was plagued by an injured ankle during the 2002 season, his yards gained rushing total dropped under the 1,000 mark (after four straight seasons of 1300+ yards), and the Rams missed the playoffs with a disappointing 7-9 record.2004 Michael Vick. Vick suffered a fractured right fibula in a pre-season game one day after Madden NFL 2004 hit store shelves; he played in only five games that year as the Falcons sank to a lowly 5-11 record. 2005 Ray Lewis. Lewis failed (for the only time in his NFL career) to record even a single interception and sat out the final game of the season with an injury as the Ravens just missed qualifying for the playoffs at 9-7, and in 2005 he suffered a torn right hamstring in Baltimore's sixth game and missed the rest of the season as the Ravens dropped to 6-10. 2006 Donovan McNabb. McNabb suffered a sports hernia in the first game of the 2005 season. He played on for another eight games despite the painful injury, but after being re-injured in a contest against the Dallas Cowboys, he finally opted for surgery and missed the final seven games of the season as the Eagles finished last in the NFC East. 2007 Shaun Alexander. Alexander broke his left foot in a game against the New York Giants and missed his team's next six games. The Seahawks made the playoffs but lost to the Chicago Bears in the second (divisional) round. 2008 Vince Young. Young hurt the quadriceps in his right leg during the Titans' fifth game of the 2007 season and didn't participate in Tennessee's game against the Houston Texans the following week, marking the first time in his career (including middle school, high school, college, and the NFL) that an injury kept him from playing
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2009 Brett Favre. Torn Bicep??2010 Polamalu & Fitz.I betting Fitz didn't sleep too well last night.
 
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Is the curse due to Madden not being on the cover since 2000 or did he get out just in time?

I'd like to see a Dallas Cowboys team photo on the cover for Madden 2011.

 
The Madden Curse and the Super Bowl hangover factor had me move Fitz behind Moss , Megatron and Andre... no lie.

 
This is from Doug Drinen's PFR blog back in 2006.

Curses

Posted by Doug on Friday, September 29, 2006

A couple of posts ago, a commenter named Jacob requested an analysis of just how unlikely all these unlikely Madden cover tradgedies have been. So I did some research. As usual, Wikipedia has a pretty good summary.

It hurt my head a little to track down the details because of the naming conventions of the Madden games. For instance, Shaun Alexander's outstanding play in 2005 landed him a spot on the cover of Madden 2007, which was released in 2006. So, if a player is on the cover of Madden X, then he kicked butt in Year X-2, but should be struck by misfortune in Year X-1. Given this, I think it might be possible that the curse is capable of going backwards in time to rewrite history. Spooky stuff.

Anyhow, for the sake of definiteness, I will list players by their curse year (X-1).

* Shaun Alexander, 2006 - he was having an unimpressive year through three games, and it now looks like he's going to miss some games with a broken foot.

* Donovan McNabb, 2005 - he missed 7 games. His numbers were good when he played, but he was cursed with lots of off-field headaches.

* Ray Lewis, 2004 - he missed one game, but otherwise had a fairly typical year. Numbers down a little, but they do not now look out of place in his career stat table.

* Michael Vick, 2003 - he was hurt in the preseason and missed most of the year.

* Marshall Faulk, 2002 - he missed two games (as he had in each of the previous two seasons). His numbers did decline dramatically.

* Daunte Culpepper, 2001 - he missed five games to injury. When he played, his numbers were down from the previous year, but he was still on pace for almost 3800 passing yards and 28 combined touchdowns.

* Eddie George, 2000 - he played the full 16 games and had arguably the best season of his career.

* Barry Sanders, 1999 - he retired unexpectedly.

I am quite sure I am not the first blogger to attempt to debunk The Madden Curse. There's not much to it, really. It's a combination of selective memory, regression to the mean, and random chance.

The selective memory comes into play after the curse is in the public consciousness, or it can be applied in hindsight. Consider this blurb from the previously-cited Wikipedia article on the Madden Curse. On Eddie George:

Although he had the best year of his career, rushing for 1,509 yards, catching 50 passes for 453 yards and scoring 16 total touchdowns, he was cursed by bobbling a pass in the playoffs. The pass was then intercepted, ironically, by Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, who returned the ball for a touchdown.

This is almost too absurd to comment on, but people do cite this when talking about the curse, which proves that you can find anything if you look hard enough. More evidence is found in the Ray Lewis writeup:

It was also Lewis' first season without a single interception, after posting a career-high 6 the previous year.

Ray Lewis is a very versatile linebacker, but when it comes right down to it, the reason everyone fears him is because of his ability to intercept the ball. I mean, the guy has averaged two interceptions per year --- two! --- during his career. For him to go a whole year without one certainly requires explanation. The Marshall Faulk comment says this:

He never broke through the 1,000 yards rushing mark for the rest of his career.

Now that's legitimate Curse material, but things like this are only brought into evidence when they are bad. Daunte Culpepper came back a few years after The Curse to have an unbelievably great season. Where was the curse then? Ask a Curse-o-phile, and he'll look at you funny. The Curse had worn off by then, of course, what are you nuts? But, if Culpepper had not had that great season later on, I guarantee you that Wikipedia article would say, "Culpepper never again returned to form." (I hate to keep picking on the wikipedia article, but given the nature of how it came to be, I think it is relatively safe to assume it does reflect the mentality of those who believe in the Curse) Try this: ask a Curse proponent right now whether Donovan McNabb is still cursed, or whether the curse has expired. He's having a pretty amazing year as of now, so McNabb Curse talk is limited to just the season afterward. But if this year turns sour, it will surely be added to the list of evidence for the Curse.

The point is, lots of thing happen during an NFL season, and even more happen during an NFL player's career. If you pick out just the bad ones and ignore the good ones, it's easy to contruct an impressive list of misfortunes.

And then there is regression to the mean. In order to get on the cover of Madden, you have to turn in one of the best performances of the year. In almost all cases, that requires a bit of luck. The next year, you're still good, but there is no reason to expect the luck to be there. The league's best performers in any category will always decline, as a group. Just for fun, let's check out the LEAGUE'S LEADING RUSHER CURSE. Again, the year listed is the curse year, the year after leading the league in rushing:

* Shaun Alexander, 2006 - detailed above. He is doubly cursed.

* Curtis Martin, 2005 - his rushing yardage dropped by almost a thousand, and he lost four games to injury. The Jets went from a playoff team to 4-12.

* Jamal Lewis, 2004 - his rushing yardage dropped by more than a thousand yards. And he spent six months in the clink. Further, "the Baltimore Ravens also failed to make the playoffs that season (2004), after winning their division the year before." Is that last one pretty cheap? Of course it is, but it came directly from the wikipedia Madden Curse writeup for teammate Ray Lewis who, by any measure, had a better season than Jamal.

* Ricky Williams, 2003 - his numbers decline drastically and he never returned to form. The following season started his string of retirements and suspensions.

* Priest Holmes, 2002 - he missed two games due to injury.

* Edgerrin James, 2001 - he wrecked his knee and missed 10 games. This was the only year of James' Colt career that they had a losing record and the only year they did not make the playoffs.

* Edgerrin James, 2000 - Uh, the next year, he wrecked his knee and missed 10 games. Also, he probably bobbled a pass.

* Terrell Davis, 1999 - he blew out his knee in the season's fourth game, and was not having a good season prior to that. The Broncos went in the crapper after winning two straight Super Bowls. Davis never again had anything remotely resembling a good season.

Or what about the LEAGUE LEADER IN RECEIVING TOUCHDOWNS CURSE?

* Steve Smith, 2006 - missed the season's first two games with an injury. No TDs so far this year.

* Muhsin Muhammad, 2005 - missed a game due to injury and also saw his numbers essentially cut in half.

* Randy Moss, 2004 - lost three games to injury and had the only sub-1000-yard season of his career. Still has not returned to form.

* Terrell Owens, 2003 - his team missed the playoffs for the first time in three years, his numbers declined, he missed a game due to injury, and he was horribly mistreated by his coaching staff. The events of this season set into motion a chain of events that essentially made TO the most hated man in the NFL.

OK, enough pomposity. Let's return to the original question, which is: exactly how unlikely is this string of occurrences? We need to examine two separate issues: (1) decreased performance, and (2) injuries.

First the performance. As I alluded to above, the top players in any category in any year will have a tendency to decline. But how much decline is reasonable, and how much is the result of the Curse? I looked at all top 3 (by fantasy points) quarterbacks and running backs since 1988. The quarterbacks, on average, declined by 3.3 fantasy points per game. The running backs declined by 2.0 points per game. Here are the declines for each of the cursed players (not counting Barry Sanders and Ray Lewis).

Cursed player Cursed Yr FantPtDiff

=======================================

Eddie George 2000 2.4

Daunte Culpepper 2001 -2.8

Marshall Faulk 2002 -9.4

Donovan McNabb 2003 -2.0

Michael Vick 2004 -7.3

Shaun Alexander 2006 -11.8

That's an average decline of about 5 points, when we should be expecting an average decline of 2 or 3 points. Note also that, even though Culpepper and McNabb declined, they declined by less than typical top-producing quarterbacks usually decline. Looked at this way, three of the six players did worse than reasonable expectations, and three did better. Although admittedly, the ones that did worse did a lot worse than the ones who did better did better. Still, compare that with the Leading Rusher Curse

Cursed player Cursed Yr FantPtDiff

=======================================

Shaun Alexander 2006 -11.8

Curtis Martin 2005 -7.8

Jamal Lewis 2004 -6.6

Ricky Williams 2003 -5.7

Priest Holmes 2002 9.3

Edgerrin James 2001 -3.9

Edgerrin James 2000 1.4

Terrell Davis 1999 -13.6

The average decline was about 4 points, when a decline of 2 points would be expected. But six of the eight did worse than reasonable expectations. This seems at least as bad as the Madden Curse.

Now let's consider the injury half of the equation. We can get the relevant data from yesterday's post, and by running the analagous numbers for quarterbacks.

* Eddie George played 16 games.

* Culpepper missed five games. My estimate is that an "average" quarterback has about a 20--25% chance of missing five or more games in a season.

* Faulk missed two games, which we saw yesterday is just about average for a running back. I'd estimate a 30--40% chance of missing at least two games.

* Vick missed 11 games, which I estimate has probability 10--15%

* McNabb missed 7 games: about a 20% chance of that.

* Alexander's fate remains to be determined. The reports I'm hearing right now suggest that he'll miss two to four games. If that's what it ends up being, it is again quite unremarkable for a running back.

Just as a very rough intuitive comparision, I'd suggest that this string of injuries is about as odd as Jeff Wilkins going through a 1-for-6 stretch in which he attempted field goals of 46, 34, 42, 29, 32, and 40 yards. That would be pretty rare, but I wouldn't assume Wilkins was cursed if it happened.

And again, the Leading Rusher Curse appears to be nearly as bad. Madden Cursed players missed an average of 4.7 games, while Leading-Rusher-Cursed backs missed an average of 4.4 games the next year (that's counting Jamal's jail time. I counted Alexander as missing 3 games in each case.)

Curses happen.

Filed in Voodoo and witchcraft | Comments (11) | Permalink
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TRADE FITZ NOW!!!!......Does that answer your question!

If you don't belive it...all i got to say is.....DRAFT WHOS EVER ON THE 2011 COVER NEXT YEAR THEN!

The most sure thing in football is expecting the guys on the cover to have major issues!

 
The problem with Madden is that they almost always put someone on the cover when that player's value has peaked. If your value has peaked then there's only one place to go: down.

It's like the people who drafted Moss and Brady last season expecting a repeat of their insane 2007 numbers. One way or another those players were destined for a fall. If you always buy assets after they've peaked, you're probably overpaying.

 
An alleged curse like Madden only has validity if it happens every single time. If there is an exception to the curse and you want to disregard that exception, your reasoning will demonstrate flawed thinking.

Eddie George had a career year in his Madden curse year, yet some of you want to point to a bobbled pass in the playoffs? Get real. When you disregard the exception and go down the path of making up silly things to explain why he is included in the curse, you help demonstrate why there is no curse.

 
Frank Black said:
An alleged curse like Madden only has validity if it happens every single time. If there is an exception to the curse and you want to disregard that exception, your reasoning will demonstrate flawed thinking.Eddie George had a career year in his Madden curse year, yet some of you want to point to a bobbled pass in the playoffs? Get real. When you disregard the exception and go down the path of making up silly things to explain why he is included in the curse, you help demonstrate why there is no curse.
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It's a curse not a law of physics. Is there a wiki page somewhere that states that curses are absolutes with no exceptions or something?
 
I think the only thing that makes this curse thing crazy is the complete lack of physical contact this sport provides. If players, I don't know, tackled or hit each other at full speed, then I could probably just write it off as a coincidence.

 
PatsFanCT said:
I think the only thing that makes this curse thing crazy is the complete lack of physical contact this sport provides. If players, I don't know, tackled or hit each other at full speed, then I could probably just write it off as a coincidence.
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Whoa. This makes sense.
 
It could be that this is all just random happenstance. It's a contact sport. People see what they want to see. Can't be a curse. Or it could be that more than 90% of the time the research department over at Madden is able to pick the player to get injured the following year for the cover because last I checked we can't predict injuries yet Madden has done so every year but one. Hmmm...

 
Players are gonna start avoiding Madden covers like the plague. Next thing you'll be seeing Jeff Reed cardboard cut outs in front of your local Game Stop.

 
TheFanatic said:
It could be that this is all just random happenstance. It's a contact sport. People see what they want to see. Can't be a curse. Or it could be that more than 90% of the time the research department over at Madden is able to pick the player to get injured the following year for the cover because last I checked we can't predict injuries yet Madden has done so every year but one. Hmmm...
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Actually, we can predict that most NFL players will miss at least one game every season, so counting Vince Young and Ray Lewis as cursed for missing one game is pretty ridiculous. Dorsey Levens, Eddie George, and Barry Sanders also didn't get injured, and Brett Favre played every game. So in 9 years, with 11 people on the cover, there have been 6 Madden players who have missed significant time with injuries--which is just about what you'd expect in the NFL.
 
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