Many fans of the NFL have been a bit superstitious over the years with players and curses. There’s the Sports Illustrated Curse, the Chunky Soup Curse, and the Madden Curse to name a few. Now that the New York Giants QB Eli Manning has been named the cover boy for John Madden’s football video game, Madden NFL 09, the Internet is abuzz with speculation about whether he will be the next victim.
Yeah, pretty superstitious! It’s all for good reason, sort of. Michael Vick, Donovan McNabb, Daunte Culpepper, and Marshall Faulk are just a few athletes that experienced a drop in performance after appearing on the cover.
Chunky Soup is blamed for ruining LaDainian Tomlinson, Ben Roethelisberger, and Kurt Warner to name a few. Sports Illustrated is also blamed for ruining careers after athletes appear on their cover. In fact, they have an archive of misfortunes that happened after cover appearances over the decades.
Personally, as a numbers nerd, I would like to actually analyze those statistics. Certainly there must be a more viable explanation. One could be that those who do well or don’t have problems after appearing are not highlighted. Those stories wouldn’t get readers, now would they?
Keywords: Ben Roethelisberger, Daunte Culpepper, Donovan McNabb, Eli Manning, John Madden, Kurt Warner, LaDainian Tomlinson, Marhsall Faulk, Michael Vick, New York Giants, NFL
