Tom Brady has one more game to avoid the dreaded Madden curse.
Tom Brady just has to survive the Super Bowl to beat the ‘Madden’ curse
Brady could be one of the rare cases of the cover athlete being fine.
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Brady has had a flawless 2017 season thus far. He has maintained good health and was awarded the NFL’s MVP the night before the Super Bowl. But there’s one last chance for doom.
Rob Gronkowski was the latest victim of the curse in 2016 when a back injury sidelined him for the Patriots’ postseason run last year. But to be fair, things did end up pretty well for the Patriots, winning the Super Bowl and all.
Garrison Hearst - 1999
Just a few months after the game was released, he suffered an ankle injury in the playoffs against the Falconson the first play from scrimmage. This caused him to miss the next two seasons after he developed Avascular Necrosis, which is the same condition that forced Bo Jackson to retire.
Dorsey Levens - 2000
Coming off a 1,000-yard season, Levens appeared on Madden 99 and had one of the worst seasons in his career, playing in just five games and rushing for 224 yards.
Daunte Culpepper - 2002
The previous season, the Vikings had gone 11-5. That fortune was reversed in the year of Culpepper’s Maddenfame, with the Vikings finishing 5-11, and Culpepper missing the last five games of the season. After passing for nearly 4,000 yards the year before, Culpepper had just 2,612.
Marshall Faulk - 2003
Faulk had rushed for at least 1,300 yards the four seasons before being on Madden 03. During that season, he rushed for 953 yards. That isn’t terrible, but he only started 10 games, and it was definitely a downtick. He was never the same.
Michael Vick - 2004
Arguably the greatest Madden player ever created, the downside of this was the fractured fibula Vick suffered that season. He ended up missing 11 games as the Falcons fell to a 5-11 season, going 2-10 without Vick.
Donovan McNabb - 2006
McNabb and the Eagles were coming off a Super Bowl appearance against the New England Patriots. Unfortunately, that was one of the last times the Eagles really contended with McNabb under center. The following season, the team went 4-5 in his starts, as he missed seven games with a groin injury.
Shaun Alexander - 2007
The hype surrounding Alexander going into the 2006 season was huge. He had been improving every season, and had just got done rushing for 1,880 yards and 27 touchdowns. Then, the curse struck. Alexander followed up a spectacular season by playing in just 10 games and rushing for 896 yards.
Vince Young - 2008
Young didn’t have a bad season, but he did lose his starting job the next season to Kerry Collins, who went 12-3 in his starts. He would have a resurgence, but an overall short career considering he was drafted third overall back in 2006.
Peyton Hillis - 2012
Hillis might have had it the worst of anybody. After a 1,177-yard rushing season, he was put on Madden 12, and we just never really saw him again. He played nine games that season and rushed for 587 yards, and it was all downhill from there.
I also noted that all cases haven’t been bad. Adrian Peterson rushed for 1,266 yards the same year he was on the cover of Madden 25, and Eddie George ran for a career-high 1,509 yards and had 16 total touchdowns in 2000.
There was also that time Calvin Johnson set the NFL record for yards receiving in a season with 1,964 the same year he was on the cover.
So hey, maybe Brady will be one of the good cases and outlast the curse! Then again, that’s not the only curse he faces Sunday night:
Brady has done many amazing things in his career, but if he can break both curses, that might be his greatest accomplishment yet.
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