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Ray Lewis To Break Madden Game Cover Curse?

Posted by simoniker on from the with-his-shoulderpads dept.

An anonymous reader writes "CNN/Money, in a column looking at the oft-discussed Madden cover curse, discloses that Ray Lewis of the Baltimore Raven will be on the cover of Electronic Arts' Madden NFL 2005 videogame, due out in August. For the past four years, the athlete on the cover of that game has had an injury plagued or shortened season, dating back to 2001, when Tennessee Titan Eddie George got knocked all around the field, including a particularly brutal hit by... Ray Lewis."

2 of 43 comments (clear)

  1. There's more to it by AvantLegion · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Any other explanation is just mumbo-jumbo.

    No, this is mumbo-jumbo.

    If your theory were valid, a few things should happen:

    A "regressing" player should find himself having an "average" season by his numbers. He came off an exceptional year, yes. Might not be able to repeat it, yes. But what happens is we're having players who aren't just having average years, but they are having worse statistical years than any other year in their career. Players are not equal, and some players will typically be higher on the distribution than others. They each, however, have their own statistical averages over their career.

    Eddie George, for example, has played 8 seasons in the NFL. He ran for more than 1,000 yards in every season except one - his Madden cover season.

    Daunte Culpepper's worst stastistical year as a starter? His Madden cover.

    We're not talking about players coming off great seasons and returning to their average performances. We're talking about players suffering their single worst seasons as pros, after which they return to closer to their previous averages.\

  2. Another hypothesis based on reason by gtshafted · · Score: 3, Interesting
    I could be wrong but has anyone thought of any psychological reasons for this? Being that this "curse" is pretty well publicized - it could be another case of "self ful-filling prophecy", or a better one: Other "average" players get jealous of the cover man (being the madden cover is a really big deal in terms of rep - since nfl players really like the game, when I was at EA we gave them advanced copies) and just decide to hit the bastard harder than ussual... (Rage and jealously does play a factor in sports) - remember the Curt Shilling / Doug Glanville incident?

    http://espn.go.com/mlb/columns/stark_jayson/120128 3.html