Life In The DPC!

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.