Brett Favre and the Madden Curse
Madden NFL 2009 will be released on August 12th, 2009 with former Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre on the cover. At the time of release Favre was retired and became the first non active cover boy in the history of the vidoe game franchise. Until recent developments it would also seem that Favre was going to be the first player to avoid the Madden Curse.
Prior to 1999, every annual installment of the Madden NFL series primarily featured John MaddenElectronic Arts selected Garrison Hearst to appear on the cover, and has since featured one of the league’s top players on every annual installment.[5] Since then, certain players have experienced a decline in performance, usually due to an injury. For example, quarterback Michael Vick appeared on the cover of on its cover. In 1999, Madden 2004, and suffered a leg injury that sidelined him for most of the 2004 season.[5] In a similar example, 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.[6] As a result, Alexander’s rushing statistics were substantially less than those from the previous season.[6] - Wilikpedia.org
Of course Favre is likely to come out of retirement and any NFL franchise should be reticent to trade for the future Hall of Famer due to his inclusion on the cover of the latest version of Madden. I am not saying he will get injured, his 253 consecutive starts point to the contrary, but he could under perform like many of his Madden cover boys predecessors.
Madden cover curses aside history is not on the side of Favre. There is also a nasty precedent of aging quarterbacks hanging on too long and playing for different teams at the end of their careers( i.e. Joe Namath, Johnny Unitas and Joe Montana). Of course Montana played fairly well for Kansas City but he was never the same quarterback and this is the likely scenario for Favre.
2008 Nevada Football Preview
The 2007 version of the Wolf Pack finished the year 6-7 (4-4) and were lambasted by their Lobo hosts 23-0 in the New Mexico Bowl. That season was filled with close calls; four losses by seven points or less. Including losses to Boise State and Hawaii by a total of four points. Of course they squeaked out close wins against a pair of Aggie (31-28 at Utah State and 40-38 at New Mexico State). Throughout the season you never knew what version of the Pack was going to show up: the one that went toe to toe with national powerhouses or team that played down to its lesser opponents.
This season will likely be a similar to 2007 with some missed opportunities at victory and a general sense that the Pack is not ready to make the jump from mid level WAC team to the Boise States or Fresno States of the world. The Pack will beat the opponents that they’re supposed to and like 2007 they will fall short against the better teams in the WAC and the rest of the NCAA.
- 8/30 Grambling (W) The Pack scheduled a cupcake to start of their new campaign. It seems that they have learned from last seasons opening day fiasco against Nebraska and want to start their new season on the right foot. I am probably more stoked to see the Tiger Marching Band than the actual team.
- 9/6 Texas Tech (L) The Red Raiders are a preseason top 25 pick by many pundits and bring their high powered passing game, dubbed Air Raid, to Reno, and they will invoke memories of the Blitz to the Pack’s revamped 4-3 defense.
- 9/13 @ Missouri (L) Missouri finished 5th (AP) in the country and the Pack will likely wish that they had stayed in No Town after squaring off against the Tigers and Heisman finalist Chase Daniel.
- 9/27 @ UNLV (W) Coach Ault makes it a point to always beat the Rebels. Maybe he should also focus on the other 11 games each season…
- 10/04 @ Idaho (W) I almost attended the University of Idaho and I am glad I didn’t. The Vandal football program is one of the reasons why I am glad I didn’t go. Some of my negative vibes about the Vandals are also shared by Pete Fiutak, of FoxSports.com, who stated “Idaho won’t go 1-11, but it’ll likely be the underdog in all 11 FBS games.”
- 10/11 New Mexico State (L) It’ll definitely be a high scoring affair in Reno. The Pack have more fire power and a better defense than the Aggies and this will be a prototypical WAC game.
- 10/18 Utah State (W) The WAC’s other Aggies are about as potent as the an AARP memeber that forgot its Viagra.
- 10/26 @ Hawaii (L) Sure they lost everything that got them to the BCS but even a stripped down version of the Warriors are a tough opponent when they’re playing at home.
- 11/07 @ Fresno State (L) The Bulldogs will be the third straight team from the WAC to play in a BCS bowl game.
- 11/15 San Jose State (L) When I attended Nevada I used to laugh at the Spartans but Coach Tomey has changed the culture of San Jose State.
- 11/22 Boise State (L) Nevada has not beaten Boise State since 1998 and this decade of futility will continue.
- 11/29 @ Louisiana Tech (W) The Bulldogs are led by a champion… only that Champion is named Zac.
Danica
Danica Patrick, DPC.com’s favorite driver, after Kowalski from the Vanishing Point, shows off her verbal judo skills…
Matinee With the Dark Knight
Due to technical difficulties I didn’t get to the midnight showing of the Dark Knight. Ultimately it doesn’t matter whether I saw it at 12:01 a.m. or eleven hours later, except for maybe bragging rights amongst my peers. With that said, the Dark Knight is the rare flick that actually lives up to its prerelease hype.
Without giving too much away I will say that the Dark Knight was better than Iron Man and X-Men 2, which DPC.com considers to be two of the best comic book based movies to be released in recent memory, and Heath Ledger’s performance is as good as advertised. A part of me assumed that the reviews of Ledger’s performance were tainted by his untimely passing but his take as the Joker is a legit and is definitely worth an Oscar bid. DPC.com is quite biased toward Ledger but that tendency aside, the dude scared me as the Joker.
Midnight With the Dark Knight
I’m going to a midnight showing of the Dark Knight, the sequel to Batman Begins. Details to follow…
Separated at birth?
Two Man Pack In The Vegas Summer League
Courtesy of Misc. WAC Football Notes…
Western Athletic Conference foes, Nevada and Louisiana Tech, were both listed by Rivals.com as being the hosts in match ups “where the visiting team has a lot to lose and not much – or anything – to gain.” The article is slap in the face to the Pack by portraying the WAC stalwarts as nothing more than victims to their more prominent brethren.
The Wolfpack are hosting the Texas Tech Raiders on September 6th. The Red Raiders averaged 40.9 points per game and will likely light up the scoreboard against Nevada’s defense that gave up 32.2. ppg, 95th in the NCAA, last season.
The LA Tech Bulldogs open up with the Mississippi State Bulldogs on August 30th. Per Rivals.com,”This is the first time an SEC team has deigned to travel to Ruston to play the Bulldogs.”
In all likelihood Nevada will get throttled by Texas Tech but scheduling the Red Raiders is an indication that Coach Ault and the Pack are making the proper scheduling strides.Hopefully the results will not be as one sided as last season’s fiasco against the Nebraska Cornhuskers.
Madden ‘09 and Matt Jones
Life In The DPC is eagerly waiting for the release of Madden NFL ‘09 on August 12th, 2008. It’s sad but true that Madden NFL 2008 is still on heavy rotation at the palatial estate of your scribe considering that there are minimal changes from each annual edition. Like the main difference from the ‘07 edition to the ‘08 edition is the exclusion of Pacman Jones but in an act of hypocrisy Tank Johnson and Chris Henry were both included.
Maybe I was irked by the exclusion of Pacman Jones because he is a member of the DPC Madden All Stars (i.e. players that I always have on my Madden Franchise Teams). With Pacman booted out of the ‘08 version I had to go to my back up defensive back Antrel Rolle. (Keep in mind Rolle is on the DPC All Stars because he was involved in the greatest “tackle” I witnessed in person. The aforementioned tackle, and YouTube link, are not given justice by the Zapruder-esque video but I thought Larry Johnson had broken his neck during the play.)
The DPC Madden All Stars recently took a bad hit when their wide receiver Matt Jones got busted for alleged possession of a controlled substance after he may have been found cutting up cocaine with a credit card while sitting in a car in Fayetteville, Arkansas. Jones made the DPC All Stars for the same reason that the Jaguars made him a first round draft pick;a 4.40 40-yard dash to go along with his 6′6″ and 232 lbs. measurements.
With a little over a month to go before Madden ‘08 is released the DPC All Stars will likely include:
QB: JaMarcus Russel (The heir apparent to Jeff George)
HB: Reggie Bush, Michael Bennett
FB:LenDale White (I know he’s a halfback but I line him up as fullback because of his girth and speed)
WR: Matt Jones, Drew Carter, Mike Williams, Nate Burleson
TE: Greg Olson
DB: Pacman Jones, Antrel Rolle
007: Quantum of Solace
From Wikipedia.org
Quantum of Solace is the 22nd James Bond film by EON Productions, due for release in the United Kingdom on 31 October 2008 and in North America on 7 November.[3] The sequel to Casino Royale (2006), it is directed by Marc Forster, and features Daniel Craig’s second performance as James Bond. Casino Royale’s Paul Haggis, Neal Purvis, and Robert Wade returned as writers, alongside newcomer Joshua Zetumer. In the film, Bond battles Dominic Greene (Mathieu Amalric), a member of the Quantum organisation posing as an environmentalist, who intends to stage a coup d’état in Bolivia to take control of its water supply. Bond seeks revenge for the death of Vesper Lynd, and is assisted by Camille (Olga Kurylenko), who also wants to kill Greene. The title was chosen from an unrelated short story in Ian Fleming’s For Your Eyes Only (1960).
Producer Michael G. Wilson created the film’s story while Casino Royale was shooting. The film was originally scheduled for a 2 May 2008 release, but it was pushed back to allow more time when Roger Michell dropped out as director. Second unit filming began in August 2007 at Siena and Madrid, before principal photography began in January 2008 at Pinewood Studios. Production designer Dennis Gassner took over from Peter Lamont, who retired after working on eighteen Bond films. Gassner designed the five major Pinewood sets, which stand in for Siena, Bolivia, and the MI6 headquarters. His designs are close to the modernism of Ken Adam, the first Bond production designer. Location filming took place in Panama, Chile, Italy and Austria, before moving back to Pinewood in June. There will be more gadgets than in Casino Royale, though they will still aim to be realistic.
