Madden curse 50% in effect

Dec 9, 2009

So the Pittsburgh Steelers’ All-Pro safety Troy Polamalu doesn’t think he’ll be able to play for the rest of the season with his bashed up knee. Polamalu injured the Posterior Cruciate Ligament in his left knee and has missed the last three games.

Pittsburgh has lost the three games that Polamalu missed due to this injury, and he’s slated to sit out on Thursday as well.

Some say bad luck, or a misstep on the field. But others point to a darker, more sinister cause for Polamalu’s season-ending injury: The Madden Curse. Since 1999, when game developer/publisher Electronic Arts started featuring athletes on the cover of their Madden football game, those athletes have all suffered injuries and/or declining performance. Polamalu is the latest in a ten-year string of cover athletes meeting with unfortunate circumstances during their year as face of the video game.

Had EA stuck with tradition and had only one cover athlete, that’d be that. But this year the Madden cover is split between Polamalu and Arizona Cardinals wideback Larry Fitzgerald. Fitzgerald has yet to be injured this season.

So who’s taking bets on when Fitzgerald’s season ends, or will he be the one to break the Madden curse?

Of course, Polamalu was injured twice, spraining his MCL and missing four games at the start of the season. So maybe he took all the bad juju in Fitzgerald’s place?

via FromDowntown