Is There A Madden Curse?

Linda writes "GamerDad looks at the 'Madden Curse' for those featured on the front cover of the videogame, year by year, and talks about how it might have come a bit early this year: 'Sports fans know about the Sports Illustrated cover curse (athletes that grace the cover tend to get hurt, really bad, a lot) but a lesser known curse is the one caused by EA Sports' powerhouse Madden franchise. It began just a few years ago when EA took the big lug himself off the cover.'" There's another good synopsis of previous cover stars' woes at the AJC.com site, after Mike Vick of the Atlanta Falcons, this year's star, broke his leg at the weekend.

Comments

Troy Brown

[pudge]

Troy Brown was the top offensive player on the Patriots, who won the Super Bowl in 2002. He should have been on the cover instead of Marshall Faulk. He set records for receiving, and had some plays on punt return that propelled them into the Super Bowl. He allowed Brady to open up his passing game.

And then, in 2002-2003 season, he got injured, and missed a bunch of games, all without being on the cover of Madden! The curse extends even to players who SHOULD have been on the cover! IT IS THAT POWERFUL.

Re:Troy Brown

[Alkaiser]

Eh, this goes farther than Madden. Look at the NCAA football game...Cade McNown?!

Alonzo Morning made the cover of NBA 2Night the season he got diagnosed for kidney failure. EA put out a press release talking about how Dikembe Mutombo would be their cover athlete, and was the first Atlana Hawk ever to be on a game cover...DAYS before he was traded to Philadelphia.

I've mentioned the video game cover curse for a long time now...it's powerful stuff.

Re:Troy Brown

[Golias]

All "cover curses" come down to this: Players tend to get attention when they play beyond expectations. That means that "Joe Pointguard" is going to get on the cover of "Fantasy Basketball Player Annual" right after playing the season of a lifetime.

So, the players that get on covers are players that just had great performances. Those performances will be tough to match by the same player, especially now that all the players who compete against them will no longer be taken by surprise by what they can accomplish.

For every Michael Jordan, who plays at an incredible level for year after year, there are a dozen Penny Hardaways and Vince Carters, who dazzle fans for a while and then reveal themselves to be merely good starting players in a league that's packed with other superstars.

It is a curse

[BoomerSooner]

I'd sure hate to be paid millions of dollars for playing a game. Damn the luck. Oh well, put me on the front of Madden 2005 and SI. I'll take my chances.

Same thing for NHL

[daeley]

I think the same thing may very well go for the EA Sports NHL series as well. Off the top of my head:

2003: Jerome Iginla - awful 02-03 season (by his standards).

2002: Mario Lemieux - awful Penguins 02-03 season, plus injury-plagued.

2001: Owen Nolan - injury-plagued, trapped on also-ran Sharks for years. Unable to save Maple Leafs' during playoffs last year.

2000: Chris Pronger - out with injuries for most of 02-03.

1999: Eric Lindros - Concussion Boy; also, Lung Filling With Blood Boy.

1998: Peter Forsberg - Had to have spleen removed last year.

Re:Same thing for NHL

[SophtwareSlump]

Yeah, but Forsberg was fine in 1999-00, Pronger was okay (yet still a cheap hit master) in 2001-02. I think in hockey it's likely that you're going to get injured at some point in your career.

Danny Heatley (I think) is on the 2004 cover that comes out next month. We'll see if anything happens to him.

Re:Same thing for NHL

[Anonymous Coward]

ESPN Gamer has a good write up of all of the game-cover curses right here.

Re:Same thing for NHL

[luccid]

dont forget Tiger Woods 2003

Re:Same thing for NHL

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow...professional hockey players getting injured. Who would have guessed?

I think it would be more amazing if a hockey player actually got through the season injury-free...cover or no cover.

Re:Same thing for NHL

[li99sh79]

Wasn't Martin Brodeur on the cover of NHL 96? He hasn't experienced any major injuries since then. -sam

Speaking as a Skeptic...

[avalys]

Short answer: No.

Long answer: No, you superstitious fool!

Was there ever a Wheaties box curse?

[xanderwilson]

They're playing sports with high risk of injury and they're pushing their bodies to the limits (which is what gets them on the covers in the first place), and then they think it's a curse when they get hurt?

Alex.

Re:Was there ever a Wheaties box curse?

[Golias]

The most famous Wheaties box covers are usually Olympic stars. For them, getting on the Wheaties box usually caps the end of their Olympic careers, because their event won't be played again at the Olympics until four years later, by which time they probably will no longer be at the peak of performance which allowed them to get the gold.

Top players?

[lowtekneq]

Though I'm by far one of the least knowledgeable people on the subject of football and the playars of said sport, I would assume that the "best" playing make it to the cover of magazines or videogames. That said the best players most likely play harder and more often. Lets look at the big picture (how many people get hurt baddly and what percent were featured on the game) before drawing conculsions.

At first...

[heldlikesound]

I thought the article was going to be about the curse of the game itself, as in: I have 23 page paper due tommorow at 1pm, but for some reason my body is physically unable to stop playing Madden and start writing it.

If anyone wants to write THAT article, talk to me.

The Curse of John Madden

[AtariAmarok]

The older you get, the more you look like Boris Yeltsin.

Re:The Curse of John Madden

[daeley]

In Soviet Russia, Boris Yeltsin looks like you!

(with apologies, comrades)

Is There a Curse?

[jazman_777]

What kind of question is this to ask on /.? Of _course_ there's a curse! Who doesn't believe in curses and devils and daemons? Many of us like unix-like OSs, which have many daemons in them.

SI cover curse

[Quixotic Raindrop]

Actually, it's hardly limited to injury. Lots of the SI cover jinx has to do with SI picking their #1 college/pro football/baseball/basketball team, and that team falling flat on its face that season.

hmmm

[pizza_milkshake]

i can think of a couple of people i'd like to see on the 2005 cover...

Regression to the Mean

[Ieshan]

No. It appears as though this is a classic example of regression.

Players who make the Madden cover have amazing, exceptional years. The next year, we look at their play to see that (most of the time) it isn't as good as the previous year. Why?

Well, these players have an average performance. The year before they made the cover, they were way above their average performance. The next year, it should follow that their performance isn't as good as this amazing season (two of these incredible seasons in a row is unlikely). Whether we claim it's because of injury, bad luck, or the Madden cover, either way, it's usually just a decent example of Regression.

We could point out that players who perform extremely poorly and therefore have terrible stats in Madden games go on to improve wildly in their next year. This is the same statistical phenomenon. :)

Re:Regression to the Mean

[Anonymous Coward]

Adding to this: Pro athletes are very competitive people...it's what they do. It is very common for a relatively low-key athlete to have a break out year, followed by a couple underperforming years. Part of the reason is that now that athlete is no longer "under the radar." Everyone knows he's out there, everyone knows he's on the cover of SI or Madden or whatever...and a lot of opponenets respond by trying to shut him down.

Re:Regression to the Mean

[Quixotic Raindrop]

I think that this regression would have to be over a much longer period of time than one season. Look at the Atlanta Braves, for example. Nobody has had the regular season success that they have, and they've done it for 12 years in a row.

They're probably making up for earlier years when they weren't very good, and so there may be a r/m going on, but it's certainly not valid from year-to-year.

Re:Regression to the Mean

[Ieshan]

Of course it could be.

There's an average player performance in football. We can pick out an "average" football player.

We can also pick out exceptional ones - people so exceptional that we ought to put on the covers of video games. By the nature of the sport, that person is likely to not have as exceptional season as the year before. Since he was on the cover of Madden, instead of attributing his decline in performance to regression (Football player X is likely to perform as a non-exceptional player, all things taken into account), we attribute the decline to something unrelated (Player X was on the cover of Madden).

Year to year regression is very common - people often say things about Rookie of the Year, and how that Rookie performs less well in his next season. Well, no wonder! He did as good as was possible the season before, there's nowhere to go but down!

Re:Regression to the Mean

[Quixotic Raindrop]

Your first post implied that all athletes or teams who had a stellar enough year to be listed on SI's cover or the cover of the Madden game will have a less-than-exceptional year the next year, and this is demonstrably false. Duke Basketball, for example, was listed on the '92 College Basketball Preview issue of SI because they'd had an excellent year prior, by winning the NCAA Championship, and SI thought they would do it again. They did.

I understand your point about the Rookie of the Year issue, but your logic is flawed: there are many places go to other than down. For example, Dontrell Willis is likely to win Rookie of the Year in Major League Baseball. It is entirely possible that he will have a MUCH better year next year even than the one he is having this year. He might win the Rookie of the Year award this year, then win the Cy Young next year while striking out 325 batters and winning 25 games, something he will not do this year.

Who are you to say that his rookie year was a fluke? Perhaps his rookie year is just the tip of the iceberg? No, this is not a simple case of regression to the mean.

Re:Regression to the Mean

[Ieshan]

Let me restate my point again.

Given any current player (Smith) of any sport:

1) Player Smith has an average skill level, which can't be measured in any way but by observing his in-game performance. (Practices, Games, Contests, etc.)

2) Given all the statistics for all of the players in his sport, Player Smith is most likely to appear in the middle of a normalized curve.

3) Player Smith has a fantastic Rookie year and is placed very high on this normalized curve.

4) Exceptional seasons are caused by both player skill and variables swaying in the player's favor. For instance, Smith might strike out 325 batters, but 75 of them might be opposing hitters catching the sun in their eyes.

5) Player Smith has performed well outside the mean. From this, we can expect two things: a) Player Smith will continue to show talent for his game and b) Smith will perform closer to the mean after his exceptional season, being that his sport is a variable game.

I'm not saying that anyone's season is a fluke, I'm just saying that on the whole, all players, including the Rookie of the Year, are likely to experience regression to the mean. Because of this, it appears as if they're in some slump of some kind. Instead, they're really just performing closer to what they might have done without the variables going their way.

Re:Regression to the Mean

[Quixotic Raindrop]

And let me point out two assumptions that make it flawed:

First, that assumes that the mean is static over time. In order for the mean to be returned to, the average player's statistics will have to be unchanging from year to year. This is patently false. The only way one can tell whether Player Smith is an "average" player is to compare the statistics for a single year only. This is part of the reason it's so exceedingly hard to compare players of different eras: the average is not static, and there are no useful objective comparisons.

Second, it is suffiently, but not necessarily, true that a given player's season statistics are a combination of skill and luck. It is entirely possible that skill alone accounted for Player Smith's breakout season, and that with a little luck the next season he could have identical statistics even though his skill level is not as high as it had been the previous year.

You imply that Player Smith necessarily will regress the next year which will appear to be some kind of slump. There is nothing which can lead us to this conclusion, since it is entirely possible that Player Smith will have even better stats next year than this, which in turn brings the mean up for next year, but does not entail that his position relative to the mean is any smaller.

Re:Regression to the Mean

[Quixotic Raindrop]

And, it is also entirely possible that other players will have awful seasons, and so his position relative to the mean could increase even though his statistics the next year are worse than the year before.

Re:Regression to the Mean

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you are both missing a very important point to the Madden Jinx. It's not only that the players have bad seasons, they also get injured: Vick's leg, Faulk had several injuries, Culpepper hasn't recovered from his knee problem, George had hip troubles.

Let's see ...

[Vanieter]

1) Football is a dangerous game
2) People featured on Madden box are usually at the top of their game.
3) Hence, they've not been injured (too much).
4) So, those players try to push harder and harder, and then injure themselves.

Just my 2 cents.

Bo Jackson - 1991

[Satan's_Tool]

Super Tecmo Bowl - 1991

Bo Jackson hip injury - 1991

'nuff said

Curse?? HOGWASH!!

[flikx]

If you play a dangerous sport, you WILL get hurt.

And for Madden 2005...

[AvantLegion]

... due to extreme pressure from the NFL Player's Association, EA Sports decided to no longer feature players on the cover of their sports products.

For Madden 2005, they went back to showing John Madden on the cover.

During week 5's broadcast of Monday Night Football, John Madden dropped dead, after shouting "BOOM" while watching Terrell Suggs lay into Rex Grossman. He was 68.

John Madden, R.I.P. (1936-2004)

I think it has to do with Videogames in General

[Metroid72]

Curious Facts:
Mike Tyson came out of his prime [Lost to Buster Douglas, and we all know what has happened after] a few years after Punch Out!!! came out.
Curiously, Sega published 'Buster Douglas Boxing' and he lost the title in his first defense.
Bo Jackson had "Bo Jackson Baseball" and then his back got all screwed
Bill Lambeer had a 'Combat Baseball' game made and the Pistons never won again - and I guess most of you don't know who Bill Lambeer is anyway
Nigel Mansel had a Data-East published NES game, and he stopped being a dominant racer short after
Ken Griffey Jr. Baseball was a great game, but Ken he was traded away from Nintendo's team (Seattle) and he's never been the same
Finally, Kobe has had a couple of videogames, and look at what he's gotten into!!!
Maybe games should suck as much as "Larry VS. Byrd One-on-one" so their stars can succeed.

Re:I think it has to do with Videogames in General

[Anonymous Coward]

Let's also not forget "Sammy Sosa High Heat Baseball", followed by a beanball to the head, the cork, etc.

Re:I think it has to do with Videogames in General

[Anonymous Coward]

I have one thing to say: "Shaq-Fu".

Article doesn't have the facts straight.

[JavaLord]

Madden years run ahead 1 year of the actual NFL season. What madden is calling "Madden 2004" is actually for the 2003 season. The person who wrote this article has the years mixed up.

Madden 2001 which was released at the start of the 2000 season a season in which the Titans went to the playoffs and lost the ravens. Eddie George who was on the cover that year had an impressive season...He rushed for 1509 yards and 14 TD's and had an additional 453 yards recieving and 2 TDs.

So overall he had 1962 yards and 16 tds. Very Impressive. He got injured the season AFTER that.

Madden 2002 which was released at the start of the 2001 season had Daunte Culpepper on the cover. In 2001 Culpepper was injured for a short while, but still managed to pass for 2612 yards and 14 TD's. He also rushed for 416 yards and 5 TD's. So overall he had 3028 yards and 19 TD's. While those aren't pro bowl numbers they aren't too shabby. What is impressive is, he had those numbers in playing only 11 games instead of 16.

Madden 2003 which was released at the start of the 2002 season had Marshall Faulk on the cover. In 2002, like Daunte Faulk was injured, although not badly enough to slow his productivity in the games he started. In only 10 Starts Marshall had 1490 all purpose yards and 10 TD's. While that is a down year for Marshall that is impressive for any other RB.

Now, Madden 2004 has Mike Vick on the cover who got hurt in preseason and will miss 4 regular season games. The games he will miss are at Dallas, Washington, Tampa bay, and at Carolina. The Falcons will likely go 3-1 without him, 2-2 if they blow the game to Carolina.

All in all, The Madden Curse didn't apply to Eddie George (he had a good year that year) and Culpepper and Faulk had off years due to minor injuries but their off years were as good as some players who weren't injured. We can't Judge Vick yet.

I wouldn't call it a curse just yet, now the guys who were on the covers of those old Sega Gensis sports games were cursed.

Football Injuries

[Doctor Cat]

My father taught history at Notre Dame for 30 years, and he had almost all the football players in his classes (maybe it was because of all the dirty jokes he told). He was in as good a position as anyone to know that a HUGE percentage of professional football players get hurt.

When Joe Montana was a freshman, he was studying pre-law so he could have a well paying backup career option if he didn't get into the NFL. Dad called him aside after class and said to give up football and just be a lawyer. "Joe," he said, "I've seen what happens, these guys go in the NFL and play 2 or 3 years, then get a crippling injury. If you join up you'll have arthritis by the time you're 30. You won't be able to close your fingers together to make a fist. Give up football and be a lawyer!"

Years later, Joe Montana (who didn't take my dad's good advice) sent him a manilla envelope in the mail. Inside was an 8x10 glossy photo of him wearing his football uniform, grinning, holding up his hand with a big, fat superbowl ring on each finger. On the back it was signed, "Dear Professor Shapiro, you were right. I joined the NFL, and now I can't close my fingers together to make a fist! -- Joe Montana"