Topic: The Madden Curse Strikes Again!

[WindyMan]

Quote
League MVP Shaun Alexander has a broken left foot and will be lost to the Seahawks for at least a couple of weeks.

http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=2602571

The ESPN story even has a chart alongside the story talking about the Madden Curse through the years.  Har har.

[UltimatePartyBear]

How does the number of injuries among Madden cover-players correlate to the number of injuries among the rest of the players, or players who generally play hard enough to be stars worthy of the cover of a game?  I've often wondered if the curse is simply a case of perfectly normal stats appearing more significant than they really are because the Madden cover issue acts as a sort of statistical magnifying glass.

[jasonditz]

It's too small a sample set, but the average star in the league gets through a season without a major injury. Alexander had been healthy pretty much his whole career, he hadn't missed a game in years. First game after being on the cover, breaks a bone, tries to play through it and makes it worse.

[slacker]

I think the problem is that players that wound up on the Madden cover usually do so after having a career year. Alexander had a career year last year and well, when you're at the top of your game, its all down hill. The same happened to Culpepper and whoever else that was involve. Also, Seattle was the super bowl loser and those teams tend to be cursed one way or another for at least a year or two. The rule of thumb is make it to the super bowl and win, cause if you don't, you might as well start rebuilding.

[jasonditz]

I wonder what percentage of people suffer major season-effecting injuries the year after their "career year".