The Sandlot

I'm not what you would call a superstitious man.  The extent of my belief in seemingly other-worldy phenomena or adherence to certain rituals was really limited to not crossing baseball bats together during a game or stepping on the chalk line that runs down the 3rd or 1st baselines on a ball diamond.
That being said, there exists a powerful force, or curse if you will, surrounding the NFL athlete who is chosen to grace the cover of EA Sports' Madden NFL Football video game.  There are numerous websites out there which list every player affected and go into great detail like this one.  To summarize:  any football player put on the cover either suffers a major injury that season, sees a drastic decline in their personal statistics or has some terrible fluky fate befall their team at a pivotal moment in a big game.

The site I linked to above did not update the fate of Peyton Hillis that year so allow me to educate you.   Hillis made the cover of Madden 2012 and his career hit a wall.  He battled a hamstring injury and started looking like a one-hit wonder. In an interview with ESPN, Hillis said,

“There’s a few things that happened this year that made me believe in curses. Ain’t no doubt about it.”

Starting with Hillis in 2012, EA has held fan voting to determine the Madden Cover boy.  This year's "winner" is Detroit Lions WR Calvin Johnson, or 'Megatron.'  Why do I mention this?  It just so happens that Megatron is one of the resident keepers on my fantasy football team.  He's coming off an amazing year in which he played all 16 games for just the second time in his career and posted 96 receptions for 1681 yards and 16 TD, all career highs.  He is arguably one of the top WR in the game today.  He happens to be thrilled that he made the cover.  Mike Vick was thrilled to and proceeded to break his leg that season.

At what point does something stop being coincidental and venture into that grey area of unexplainable phenomenon?  Like I said from the beginning, I don't believe in this sort of thing, but the history and evidence overwhelmingly point to the fact that its more than probable that some terrible fate awaits Megatron this season.  Do I keep him and hope that he becomes the one player who can (temporarily) put an end to this alleged curse?  Do I try to trade him before the season begins?  After all, he is a rare and exceptional talent.

A thought occurred to me the other day.  As a rule, curses exist until some one breaks them.  This requires a specific person or action.  I'm willing to count the first cover man's injury, RB Garrison Hearst, as coincidence.  The ultimate culprit for the continuation of the Madden Curse is Barry Sanders, who retired upon being put on the cover.  Only Barry Sanders has the power to break this curse.  He needs to un-retire and lead the Lions to a Superbowl victory.  Or perhaps Megatron himself can lead the lions to victory and end the curse himself.  Only time will tell.