Last 49er on madden cover was garrison Hearst and he broke his ankle... Must read

Prior to 1999, every annual installment of the Madden NFL series primarily featured Madden on its cover.[1][32] In 1999, Electronic Arts selected Garrison Hearst to appear on the PAL version's cover, and has since featured one of the league's top players on every annual installment[33] despite Madden's opposition.[1]
While appearing on the cover has become an honor akin to appearing on the Wheaties box,[1] much like the Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx, certain players who appeared on Madden video game box art have experienced a decline in performance, usually due to an injury.
Garrison Hearst appearing on the 1999 PAL cover was known to be the "start" of the curse, as after his appearance, he broke his ankle and was out for 2 seasons, and his performance was never the same.
After Barry Sanders' appearance on the 2000 cover, Sanders abruptly retired before training camp, falling just short of the record for most career rushing yards.
Dorsey Levens appeared on the PAL version of the 2000 game, and the Green Bay Packers, whom Levens was playing for at the time, failed to make the playoffs, and Levens was eventually released the year later.
After Eddie George appeared on the 2001 cover, the Tennessee Titans lost in Divisional round in the 2001 playoffs. Late in the 4th quarter with the Titans down 17-10, a Steve McNair pass was bobbled by George and intercepted by Ray Lewis for a touchdown, sealing the game. George also never averaged more than 3.4 yards per carry for the rest of his career.
Daunte Culpepper led the Minnesota Vikings to the playoffs in 2000, but after appearing on the Madden 2002 cover, he threw 23 interceptions as the Vikings slumped to a 5–11 record. He also broke the record for most fumbles in a single season. While his career looked to be back on track in 2004 with a career season, he blew out both knees in 2005 and 2006 and never resembled the player he was at the start of the decade.
Marshall Faulk appeared on the 2003 cover, and his career (and the success of the St. Louis Rams) severely declined afterwards. He did not register another 1,000 yard rushing season and his yards per carry average dropped from a consistent 5.4 over the previous three years to 4.5 in 2002 and 4.0 in 2003 and 2004. He started 21 out of a possible 32 games from 2002–2003 as knee injuries got the better of him. He underwent reconstructive knee surgery in 2005 and retired that same year.
After appearing on the cover of Madden NFL 2004, Michael Vick broke his fibula in a pre-season game against the Baltimore Ravens, and the Atlanta Falcons went 5-11. Years later it was discovered that he participated in an illegal dog-fighting ring and he was sent to prison.
Ray Lewis, 2005 cover athlete and middle linebacker for the Baltimore Ravens, had his season cut short in week 15 with a wrist injury. It was also Lewis' first season without an interception.
In 2006, Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb tore his ACL and meniscus in his right knee while jumping out of bounds in a game versus the Tennessee Titans, ending his season. McNabb also suffered a sports hernia in the first game of the season.
Running back Shaun Alexander, then the league's reigning Most Valuable Player, was featured on the cover of Madden NFL 2007, and sustained a foot injury that caused him to miss six starts.[34] As a result, Alexander's rushing statistics were substantially less than those from the previous season, and he never returned to true form.[34] Alexander himself has asked, "Do you want to be hurt and on the cover, or just hurt?"[35]
In 2007, GameSpot and CNBC reported that a large number of LaDainian Tomlinson's fans, who believed in the Madden Curse, were strongly opposed to EA Sports' initial decision to feature him on the 2008 cover, so much that a fan created SaveLTfromMadden.com to voice their disdain.[36][37][38] Tomlinson eventually declined the offer, but stated it was solely due to contract negotiations.[38]
Madden NFL 2008's cover featured Vince Young, the starting quarterback of the Tennessee Titans. Young missed one game of the 2007 season due to a minor injury, but for the rest of the season was roughly even with his 2006 performance. When Young appeared on Jimmy Kimmel Live to officially announce that he would appear on the cover of Madden NFL 2008, he derided allegations of becoming the curse's next victim, and stated, "I've done prayed about it and we're gonna go home and try to get to the playoffs and try to get to the Super Bowl. We'll see what happens." [39][40] In contrast, Young suffered longer-term injuries in 2008 (from which he successfully came back in 2009) and 2010, which, combined with a coaching dispute, led to his departure from the Titans prior to the 2011 season.
Brett Favre appeared on the cover of Madden NFL 2009 as a Green Bay Packer, under the impression that Favre was retired. However, shortly after the decision, Favre came back out of retirement and was traded to the New York Jets, where he was plagued by poor on-field performance and an off-field sexual harassment scandal.
On September 10, 2009, Larry Fitzgerald, wide receiver for the Arizona Cardinals and safety Troy Polamalu of the Pittsburgh Steelers, were both featured on the cover of Madden NFL 10. Polamalu sprained his MCL in the first half of the season opener and missed the next four games. After returning, Polamalu played in three more games before injuring his posterior cruciate ligament on November 14, 2009 against Cincinnati, and missed more games as a result. Fitzgerald, on the other hand, started all 16 regular season and both playoff games for the Cardinals. He did not attend the Pro Bowl due to a rib injury, leaving Steve Smith of the New York Giants to take his spot in the 2010 Pro Bowl. He recorded 97 receptions (third-most of his NFL career), 1,092 yards (fourth-most), and a career-high 13 touchdowns.[41]
Madden NFL 11 cover athlete Drew Brees played in every game of the 2010 NFL Season. However, he threw twice as many interceptions (22) that season than in the Saints' 2009 Super Bowl-winning campaign (11). Also, his Quarterback Rating dropped nearly 20 points, and the Saints lost in the first round of the playoffs to the 7-9 Seattle Seahawks, the only team to date to make the playoffs with a losing record in a full-length season. He made the 2011 Pro Bowl as a reserve, after being unable to participate in the 2010 Pro Bowl, as the Saints had made the Super Bowl. Brees played 6 weeks of the NFL Season with a torn MCL, a fact that was first outed by his teammate, Heath Evans,[42] later confirmed by another teammate, Jon Stinchcomb[43] and, eventually, Brees himself.[44] More recently, Brees's team, the New Orleans Saints, were implicated in a bounty scandal. The Saints lost draft picks, and head coach Sean Payton was suspended for the 2012 NFL season. Former defensive coordinator Gregg Williams has been suspended indefinitely.
Madden NFL 12 cover athlete Peyton Hillis has missed five games in the 2011 NFL season with a hamstring injury, missed one game with strep throat, and has had his numbers decline continuously after the second week. Hillis suffered a re-injury to his hamstring during practice before week nine and his outlook to finish this season with numbers equivalent to his previous year's performance is looking bleak. In addition, his divisive behavior in the Browns locker room during the season, particularly with regards to his contentious contract negotiations, has been the subject of much media attention. It has been rumored that Hillis will leave the Browns at the end of the 2011-2012 season as a free agent.[45] When asked his significant decline, Hillis pointed towards the infamous Madden curse as a factor, saying "Things didn't work in my favor this year. There's a few things that happened this year that made me believe in curses. Ain't no doubt about it." [46]
When asked about the "Madden Curse", Chris Erb, the EA Sports director of marketing, commented, "I don't know that we believe in the curse. The players don't believe in the curse."[35] To earn the honor of being put on the game cover, a player is usually coming off of a strong year and some regression the following year is to be expected, though many cover athletes had season-ending injuries. The injuries that Madden cover athletes experience could be attributed to the physical nature of football.[35]
Starting with Madden NFL 12 fans have voted to choose the cover athlete. Whether or not the Madden Curse exists, EA believes that many fans voted against their favorite player in hopes of avoiding it.[2] In December 2010, EA announced their plans on developing a movie based on the Curse, which will be a comedy, and not based on fate-based horror movies like Final Destination.[47]
[edit]The Madden Bowl

i soooo did not read. but P-Willis wants to be on the cover of madden and is pleading us to vote for him so i will

btw. peyton/chris johnson/Mario Williams/Polomalu/Cutler/Big Ben/Foster all have been hurt last year and were all able to me on the madden cover... Big names just get hurt in the season it happens.. i dont believe in any curse.

no way in hell I'm reading all that

didn't read, lol

f**k reading!!!

But Gearst had a breakout season that year

ugh I can't believe I read most of that

Originally posted by WillistheWall:
ugh I can't believe I read most of that

If you've been following the news recently, you know that debate with The Madden Curse or a search for common ground is both a fruitless exercise and a suicidal strategy. However, you might not know that we live in a deeply troubled society. The first thing I want to bring up is that it wasn't so long ago that people like you and me were free to offer true constructive criticism—listening to the whole issue, recognizing the problems, recognizing what is being done right, and getting involved to help remedy the problem. Recently, that's become a lot harder to do. What happened that changed things so much? To put it briefly, The Madden Curse happened. By doing the entire country a grave disservice, The Madden Curse has managed to overthrow the government and eliminate the money system.

Do I want The Madden Curse to pigeonhole people into predetermined categories? No, thank you very much; I would much rather refute The Madden Curse's arguments line-by-line and claim-by-claim. Viewing all this from a higher vantage point, we can see that it's easy to tell if The Madden Curse is lying. If its lips are moving, it's lying.

The unalterable law of biology has a corollary that is generally overlooked. Specifically, it seems that no one else is telling you that following The Madden Curse's words left to right and down a page is like following fingernails on a chalkboard. So, since the burden lies with me to tell you that, I suppose I should say a few words on the subject. To begin with, we ought to get us out of the hammerlock in which The Madden Curse is holding us. That'll make The Madden Curse think once—I would have said "twice" but I don't see any indication that it has previously given any thought to the matter—before trying to lead an active disinformation campaign.

I find it necessary, if I am to meet my reader on something like a common ground of understanding, to point out that there is no compelling moral or economic reason why The Madden Curse should prostrate the honor, power, independence, laws, and property of entire countries. It follows from this that as part of its latest power grab, The Madden Curse has been reducing our modern, civilized, industrialized society to a state of mindless, primitive barbarism. No, scratch that. Let me instead make the much stronger claim that prudence is no vice. Cowardice—especially The Madden Curse's inconsiderate form of it—is. If The Madden Curse gets its way, we will soon be engulfed in a Dark Age of phallocentrism and indescribable horror. That's why I'm telling you that it uses emotional arguments rather than rational debate to convince people that it can scare us by using big words like "photodisintegration". Now I could go off on that point alone, but it is better to be a little old-fashioned but honest and loyal than enlightened and modern but possession-obsessed and antidisestablishmentarianism-prone. But I digress. Its idea of morally questionable, iracund tribalism is no political belief. It is a fierce and burning gospel of hatred and intolerance, of murder and destruction, and the unloosing of a satanic bloodlust. It is, in every literal sense, a capricious and pagan religion that incites its worshippers to a rapacious frenzy and then prompts them to trade facts for fantasy, truth for myths, academics for collective socialization, and individual thinking for group manipulation.

By and large, I have seen numerous uninformed zobs take us all on a thoroughly reckless ride into the unknown. What's sad is that The Madden Curse tolerates (relishes?) this flagrant violation of democratic principles and the rule of law. That just goes to show that The Madden Curse likes saying that human beings should be appraised by the number of things and the amount of money they possess instead of by their internal value and achievements. Okay, that's a parody—but not a very gross one. In point of fact, if The Madden Curse can give us all a succinct and infallible argument proving that divine ichor flows through its veins, I will personally deliver its Nobel Prize for Nefarious Rhetoric. In the meantime, we wouldn't currently have a problem with racism if it weren't for The Madden Curse. Although it created the problem, aggravated the problem, and escalated the problem, The Madden Curse insists that it can solve the problem if we just grant it more power. How naïve does it think we are? Truly, The Madden Curse is unwilling to entertain any opposition to its ideas and policies. Let me try to explain what I mean by that in a single sentence: I am aware that many people may object to the severity of my language. But is there no cause for severity? Naturally, I aver that there is because The Madden Curse's stolid, ophidian theatrics have led to more, not less, defeatism in our society. Am I being too harsh for writing that? Maybe I am, but that's really the only way you can push a point through to The Madden Curse. Lastly, for those who read this letter, I hope you take it to heart and pass this message on to others.

Originally posted by KowboyKiller:
If you've been following the news recently, you know that debate with The Madden Curse or a search for common ground is both a fruitless exercise and a suicidal strategy. However, you might not know that we live in a deeply troubled society. The first thing I want to bring up is that it wasn't so long ago that people like you and me were free to offer true constructive criticism—listening to the whole issue, recognizing the problems, recognizing what is being done right, and getting involved to help remedy the problem. Recently, that's become a lot harder to do. What happened that changed things so much? To put it briefly, The Madden Curse happened. By doing the entire country a grave disservice, The Madden Curse has managed to overthrow the government and eliminate the money system.

Do I want The Madden Curse to pigeonhole people into predetermined categories? No, thank you very much; I would much rather refute The Madden Curse's arguments line-by-line and claim-by-claim. Viewing all this from a higher vantage point, we can see that it's easy to tell if The Madden Curse is lying. If its lips are moving, it's lying.

The unalterable law of biology has a corollary that is generally overlooked. Specifically, it seems that no one else is telling you that following The Madden Curse's words left to right and down a page is like following fingernails on a chalkboard. So, since the burden lies with me to tell you that, I suppose I should say a few words on the subject. To begin with, we ought to get us out of the hammerlock in which The Madden Curse is holding us. That'll make The Madden Curse think once—I would have said "twice" but I don't see any indication that it has previously given any thought to the matter—before trying to lead an active disinformation campaign.

I find it necessary, if I am to meet my reader on something like a common ground of understanding, to point out that there is no compelling moral or economic reason why The Madden Curse should prostrate the honor, power, independence, laws, and property of entire countries. It follows from this that as part of its latest power grab, The Madden Curse has been reducing our modern, civilized, industrialized society to a state of mindless, primitive barbarism. No, scratch that. Let me instead make the much stronger claim that prudence is no vice. Cowardice—especially The Madden Curse's inconsiderate form of it—is. If The Madden Curse gets its way, we will soon be engulfed in a Dark Age of phallocentrism and indescribable horror. That's why I'm telling you that it uses emotional arguments rather than rational debate to convince people that it can scare us by using big words like "photodisintegration". Now I could go off on that point alone, but it is better to be a little old-fashioned but honest and loyal than enlightened and modern but possession-obsessed and antidisestablishmentarianism-prone. But I digress. Its idea of morally questionable, iracund tribalism is no political belief. It is a fierce and burning gospel of hatred and intolerance, of murder and destruction, and the unloosing of a satanic bloodlust. It is, in every literal sense, a capricious and pagan religion that incites its worshippers to a rapacious frenzy and then prompts them to trade facts for fantasy, truth for myths, academics for collective socialization, and individual thinking for group manipulation.

By and large, I have seen numerous uninformed zobs take us all on a thoroughly reckless ride into the unknown. What's sad is that The Madden Curse tolerates (relishes?) this flagrant violation of democratic principles and the rule of law. That just goes to show that The Madden Curse likes saying that human beings should be appraised by the number of things and the amount of money they possess instead of by their internal value and achievements. Okay, that's a parody—but not a very gross one. In point of fact, if The Madden Curse can give us all a succinct and infallible argument proving that divine ichor flows through its veins, I will personally deliver its Nobel Prize for Nefarious Rhetoric. In the meantime, we wouldn't currently have a problem with racism if it weren't for The Madden Curse. Although it created the problem, aggravated the problem, and escalated the problem, The Madden Curse insists that it can solve the problem if we just grant it more power. How naïve does it think we are? Truly, The Madden Curse is unwilling to entertain any opposition to its ideas and policies. Let me try to explain what I mean by that in a single sentence: I am aware that many people may object to the severity of my language. But is there no cause for severity? Naturally, I aver that there is because The Madden Curse's stolid, ophidian theatrics have led to more, not less, defeatism in our society. Am I being too harsh for writing that? Maybe I am, but that's really the only way you can push a point through to The Madden Curse. Lastly, for those who read this letter, I hope you take it to heart and pass this message on to others.

I feel like you wrote that with the sole purpose of hurting my brain.

I can't be a constructive member of this forum if you keep posting like this. I simply will not read all that junk. Get to the point.

f**k THIS THREAD



VOTE FOR WILLIS