Is The Curse of Madden Real?

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Every year Madden NFL picks a cover athlete or cover athletes for the “face of the game” if you will. From this accruing process every year there is something called the madden curse.

What is the Madden Curse? The madden curse is a player in the NFL has a great year and has the honor of being on the cover of Madden NFL.

What the curse is, is the year they are on the cover of the game they either have a bad year or have an injury that messes with their season.

Many people fear this “curse” and actually get worried if a player from their favorite team gets picked to be on the cover.

I will be going over the past five years of madden cover athletes and show the different stats and injury’s that accrued the year before and the year of them being on the cover.

Let’s start in 2017 when Rob Gronkowski was on the cover of Madden NFL 17. Gronk was on the New England Patriots this year and not the Tampa Bay Buccaneers like he is now.

Gronk had a huge year the year before he was the cover player. He recorded 72 catches, 1176 receiving yards, and 11 touchdowns. While also playing 15 out of 16 games.

The year Gronk was on the cover he only played 8 games due to a season ending injury. He recorded 25 catches, 540 receiving yards, and 3 touchdowns.

Gronk had a significantly worse year due to injury but one positive from this season was that the team he was on, New England Patriots, won the Super Bowl that year.

The next cover athlete of Madden NFL 18 is the GOAT himself Tom Brady from the New England Patriots.

The year before Brady was on the cover he had a monster season. He stats were 385 completions(66.27 PCT), 4577 passing yards, and 32 touchdowns and only 8 interceptions. While playing all 16 regular season games.

They also won the LI Super Bowl that year against the Atlanta Falcons after being down 28-3.

The year Tom Brady was on the cover of Madden his stats were a little worse but not by much.

Brady recorded 375 completions(65.70 PCT), 4355 passing yards, 29 throwing touchdowns with 11 interceptions, and 2 rushing touchdowns. While also playing all 16 regular season games.

The stats are roughly the same and the madden curse didn’t seem to bother Brady.

The only thing that was bad during the year was the ended up losing the the Philadelphia Eagles in that years Super Bowl. But if there was someone to not be effected by the “curse” it would be the greatest quarterback of all time.

Antonio Brown on the Pittsburgh Steelers was the cover athlete of Madden 19. Brown was known as one of the best receivers for many years and even considered the best for a decent amount of time.

Brown stats the year before he was on the cover of Madden was 104 receptions, 1297 receiving yards, and 15 touchdowns. While playing 15 out of 16 games.

In the past two cover athletes we talked about there stats either changed or didn’t change but brown is different.

Brown didn’t get worse he just had to deal with a lot of off-season problems. It started with fighting with teammates on the steelers and off field problems.

The steelers agree to trade Brown and he was delt to the now Las Vegas Raiders. There were a lot more problems on the Raiders making the Raiders releasing him. The Patriots picked up Brown for 1 game where he scored a touchdown.

He got suspended by the league and the year after got signed by the Tampa Bay Buccaneers and had an pretty good season,playing only 8 games, and even won the Super Bowl.

The next cover athlete goes to Patrick Mahomes. Patrick Mahomes had one of the best years in NFL history.

The year before he was on the cover of Madden he recorded 383 completions, 5097 passing yards, 50 touchdowns and only 12 interceptions. While playing all 16 regular season games.

The year Mahomes was on the cover he recorded 319 completions, 4031 passing yards, 26 touchdowns and 5 interceptions.

The stats dropped significantly but Mahomes won the Super Bowl and Super Bowl MVP so he still had a really great year.

The final cover athlete that we will talk about is the Madden 21 cover athlete Lamar Jackson. Lamar emerged out of nowhere and became one of the games best.

The year before he was on the cover his stats were 265 completions, 3127 passing yards, and 36 passing touchdowns with 6 interceptions. Jackson is known for is running ability though. He had 1206 rushing yards and 7 rushing touchdowns. While winning MVP this year.

The year after he was on the cover of Madden he recorded 242 completions, 2757 passing yards, and 26 passing touchdowns with 9 interceptions. He also had 1005 rushing yards and 7 touchdowns.

Jacksons stats dropped dramatically when he was on the cover of Madden.

There were many changes in stats before and after being on the cover of Madden by some players. There were some though that didn’t change and stayed the same or even did better.

So after all this. Do you think the Madden curse is real?

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