Thinking Sideways: The Madden Curse

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Hey there, and welcome again to Thinking Sideways, where once again we have a mystery for you. This week, we're gonna talk about a completely different kind of mystery. Well, first, what is your name? Well? I was going to tell people where we were talking about before I told him who I was, so that maintained the mystery. But if you want to what is your name? Who are you? People?

What's going on? I actually figured if I talked long enough, one of you would spill my name so you could tell me who I was, because I don't remember anymore. We are Thinking Sideway. That's Steve over there that I'm pointing to. There's Devin. Yeah, um, I one of these two guys as Joe better known as Wolf. Yeah. Okay, well okay, should we talk about stuff? Yeah, let's talk about some stuff because that was a beautiful, beautiful intro

I'm glad to be scripted very well. This week we're gonna be talking about the supposed curse surrounding players who were featured on the cover of the Madden NFL Game. Supposedly it ruins their careers or does bad things through their careers and seasons and their team seasons. And it's kind of a fun one, a sports mystery. It's also it's also kind of pop culture mystery. Yeah, kind of is. But I do want to say right off the top here, I'm not a huge football fan. I mean, I know

a little bit about it. But the point is there are fanatics out there who get a little upset sometimes when you drop a stat I'm not a sat guy. Give us a little bit. We're an ministries podcast, not a football podcast. Right, You can only know so much. So we know what football is, Yeah, we do, we do. We're talking well, we're talking about American football where they kick up all around. We're talking about not the good football,

We're talking about the dumb football. Well, you both have managed to alienate all of everything everything, all right, Well, these two are gonna leave. I'm just gonna tell you about the story. It'll be great. But I do want to before we get into the story, mentioned that this was a listener's suggestion. This was suggested a couple of years ago by Peyton Manning. I think, so okay, I kind of think, all right, Peyton, I think might have

been a little pissed that he wasn't picked for the cover. Well, you know what it'll um, So let's let's kick things off and talk about the banning the Madden Curse. As I said, players are featured on the game's cover and then they have poor performance, and this seems to have affected most, if not all, but quite a few of the players. Uh. And there's there's a bunch of details here that before we dive into the curse we need to dive into first. They're kind of precursor bits of information.

For those of you who are not familiar with Madden NFL, which actually was originally known as John Madden Football. It is a video game, so it's been on consoles since the beginning of time. The game was originally released on computers, but immediately jumped over to the console world, so it was on Sega Genesis and the Supernintendo. Several pixels or something like that has more pixels every year, yeah, yeah, that's how that's genuinely yes, it is. I think you

can get it for also on computers still today. Yeah, you see primarily on consoles because you know, it seems like the game market, at least as far as I'm waring, I might be wrong here, but there's a huge portion of the game market that is console based, and they seem to go for that. I know there's people who play computer games. You are going to piss off the PC master Race here, man Master Race. I'm a Mac guy. They can't do anything Windows and Windows. Yeah, than it

used to be there is. I mean, basically, a console is just a computer. Yeah, that's very dedicated to There are a ton of people who do game on PCs as well. And It's funny is that when I started doing the research for this, I was pretty sure that I had played John Madden Football when I was in junior high in high school when it first came out, But as I started looking at screen captures and stuff, I realized that, No, what it was is that I was over my buddy Joel's house with Rocky. We were

playing tech Mobowl, so we were playing a completely different game. Yeah, you were, I played Madden sixty four like once, and then my brother Nintendo sixty Sorry, the naming conventions are going to get weird. And it's fine, I know all of the game, but yeah, he beat me really really badly the very first time I ever played it, and I was just like, I'm done with this. It's just ridiculous. I've never I've never played the game. Is that a first person game or what? Is it? Exactly? Yes and no.

It really depends on the version. Sometimes you're the quarterback and you see what the quarterback is. Sometimes you're a field camera. It's and it's it's changed over time, really is the technologies evolved. So it's hard for me to say exactly what's the viewing perspect is God, and I haven't played on Yeah, the one we played it was like you basically picked your You're like, all right, we're gonna do this to this time, We're going to do this play this. Yeah. Well, and that was the big

thing about so this is a weird thing. But that was what really helped put this particular game on the map is there was all kinds of games out there that were football games, but they all had made up teams because they didn't have endorsements, and John Madden Football would be the first one that would get the NFL

National Football League endorsement. But the other thing that they had is from the very beginning, though it had a clunky user interface, it apparently had this really amazingly deep playbook. Let's say Tech Mobile had ten plays that you could run through a team. Madden was thirty forty fifty deep, and I don't know the number I'm making it, but it was. It was exponentially larger in the number of plays were available than any other game at the time.

Madden was actually, from what I heard, really deeply involved in the creation of this game. Yeah, when I first heard about it, I just assumed that they paid him some money and he got his name, and they got his name and his picture to put on the game. That's what I would all think. It turns out he was actually pretty involved in it, and so he probably insisted on it being as you know, cool and realistic. And he did insist on realism, which is part of

the reason that the playbook was as it was. And there was a two year delay because they they approached Madden in eighties six, I think it was five or eighty six with the game idea. It didn't come out until eight. I always loved the story because they got a hold of him while he was traveling somewhere on an amtrack train because apparently Madden was afraid to fly, so he would take the train everywhere, so they knew they had him as a captured audience for at least

several hours of interesting. That's really smart. Yeah, I wonder if he's still if he still does that, or if he has no episode about the amtrack derail. I don't I actually do not know about Madden's travels anymore. I've Madden's been on the news for many years. He's now, I mean John Menn's would eighty one eighty two, he was well here, No, he's born in nineteen thirty six, so he's gonna be eighty two eighty three, somewhere right in that range. So he's been around for a while.

Um speaking of Madden though, the reason that John Madden people know Madden. For those of you who don't know Madden, he was a football player who was an offensive tackle when he was in college, and he was drafted into the NFL, but he would never actually play in the NFL because in training camp that first year he suffered a knee injury that he couldn't overcome. Right, So then he turned around, he got into coaching, right, Yeah, he

got into coaching. Turned around, he figured out he like coaching. He started coaching college ball in nineteen sixty and then he made the transition to professional football in nineteen sixty seven when he started coaching the Oakland Raiders. And he would coach the Raiders for a total of eleven seasons from nineteen sixty seven or no, I guess it was

ten because it was nineteen sixties. Oh yeah, it was the nineteen sixty seven in ninety eight is when he was coaching there, and he was a pretty successful coach. I mean during that time, he got them into the playoffs multiple times. They would eventually win the Super Bowl in nineteen seventies seven, although they did kind of earn the moniker of the team that couldn't. They would get into the playoffs, they would get into the Super Bowl,

but they couldn't actually win it. It was team is one of the Buffalo Bills used to be that way back in the nineties. They made it into the Super Bowl. I think it was three or four times in a row when I was a kid, and every time it was that was when I stopped. I could I couldn't watch football anymore because I was so excited they had made it again, and then they would just fail again and fail is a harsh way to say it, but they didn't win. And that's really what counts on the

Super Bowl. It's life in general. Kids. Yeah, they don't have a they don't have a cut downside super Bowl ring. They don't. So we've we've covered some of this history here, but from there and on out of course, Mad after he retired, he'd become a sports commentator, and he would be a commentator for about thirty years. And I'm pretty sure that's where everybody these days really knows Mad because he's on Sunday, Saturday and Sunday Football talking about the teams.

He's got that really a iconic voice. They either know him as a commentator or they know him because of the video games. One are the two? Yeah yea. Now and as we said in eighty six, I think I might have said it was eighty five, but in eighty six he was approached about this game idea and at the time it was electronics artists who approached him. They are now e A timer on and e A sports.

Just it's it's e A. You if you know games, you know e A. Then you know if you know gas, you know, and you also know how I feel about e A. So I'm just not even gonna do not Like I don't know how she feels about it, but I don't care. We're gonna keep going because that's a warning sign right there. That's a do not interest, Like the porky Pine when they it means don't touch me, don't don't break this up, don't do it. Just keep I'm gonna keep moving on Porkypine that does a little

dance yeah from the skunk Um. Okay. So, like I said, the first version of the game comes out, and then each time that it comes out, John Madden is featured on the cover of the game in some pose or you know, the photo of a football or looking like he's pointing at something, but what's just wearing a sexy little teddy or maybe posing in front of a Christmas tree. That was not that one. Those were all rejected ideas, which is why you didn't stay at electronic arts for

very long. You kept coming up with these great ideas that why not guys. Yeah, but the game would begin to integrate players on the covers. The first time that it would happen would be for Madden NFL, and then um, from then on out, it seemed like they're typically would be at least one player, though in the beginning that

player wasn't the prominent person. It was still John Madden was screened back or knocked back image of some player in a game in the background, and it was some high performing player, but they weren't the main focus of the cover. Yeah. Now, I will real quick here just explain something about the way the nomenclatier or the description of dates and names is done, can be a bit confusing. I just want to get break this down for folks.

Because football has the regular season, which is normally September ish to December, and then the postseason, which is of course the finals, and then the football or the football the Super Bowl, and of course the beginning the year that the regular season happened is typically what you'll see that season referred to in terms of the numbers. Soeen just passed and then we had the Super Bowl and teen.

But that's still considered the seventeen season. Okay, but Madden NFL the game always uses the upcoming year's number, So in seventeen they released Madden NFL eighteen. So it's kind of car years they jump ahead, so it can get in an effort to stay relevant longer. I yes, I don't know. It can It can get a little kookie or a little hard to follow if you're if you don't think about that. So that's the reason I bring it up. And I was the first one I looked

into it. I was a little confused to Yeah, I was too. I was like, well, that doesn't make but yeah, oh wait until wait, it gets better. There are years that they change the numbers and it doesn't make a lick of sense, and that's when it's even better. Well like like Madden's sixty four. Yeah, what what the deuce? Come on, guys, cut it out. There was Madden two thousand six, and now after it changed to a two digit number, you know. Yeah, yeah, it's it's not it's

not consistent. Um, but let's let's okay. So that's that's the backstory. That's all you need to know there. Let's get down into the nitty gritty bits of the curse itself. As I said before, there were about eight editions of the game with just Madden, and then after they started showing players. But of course in those first couple of years, those players seemed to not suffer any ill effects. It wasn't until Madden ninety nine that problems began to erode

to arise. That was the year that the PAL version of the game, the p A L which that's the the oh, it's the version of the game that has meant for Asia, Europe and Australia because they use a different encoding method on video that we do here, which is nt s something I can't remember what the full acronym is, so they have to release different versions in

different countries. So they released this one overseas and this one in Madden n In the States it's still John Madden, but over there it's Garrison Hurst of the San Francisco forty Niners. And then the next year that they would do the same thing. They would release a version of the game with Barry Sanders from the Detroit Lions for the two thousand version. And I'm not sure if that was the PAL version or if they did it all over that way. I think it was still pal at

that point. And then from that point forward, John Madden is no longer on the cover. It is all star players. And right away people would say that there was problems once it was just a player on the cover. Uh. For example, the NFL ninety nine or Madden NFL ninety nine with Garrison Hurst that he's considered the first victim because that year he would twist his ankle in the playoffs and he would miss the following two seasons. And then from there on out and all that time forward,

tons and tons of these guys have suffered luck. And you know, it's actually recent point so many football fans believe in in this that like when the nominations for the the upcoming cover are the people will actually not vote for their favorite player. Yeah and get that, Yeah when the when the theory section. Yeah, So it's been

like nineteen years of disaster. Basically, not every player seems to have suffered the effects, but quite a freaking few of them happen as anybody sued, Not nobody's sued, but a couple of people have have really ducked out of the nomination. And we'll talk about that I'm gonna go I'm gonna run through about a dozen players here, because I just this is the best way to illustrate the curse. And that's a bad st You can just to a dozen NFL players, yeah, because I'm I mean, that's not

the way it works. Okay, So I'm just gonna start with NF Madden NFL two thousand. That was Barry Sanders of the Detroit Lions. The problem was, Sanders retired just before the start of the nine season. He got some injuries, right well, he had been injured, yes, and he decided he was he wasn't going to start the season, and of course they don't released the game, so they were kind of in a bind there. So that was a negative thing for the Lions because they lost their star

because Barry Sanders was a badass. They of course, now they turned and they've got the POW version, and in Madden NFL two thousand POW version, they had Dorsey Levins of the Green Bay Packers. He would have a decent year. He'd run for a thousand thirty four yards that's HEAs and which is good, but his team they'd missed the playoffs and then from that year forward, his performance and his role in the team would decline. Uh, and they would let him go in two thousand one. So not

but two years after the team lets him. Not good about a year and a half later. Yeah, Matt And NFL two thousand one, Eddie George of the Tennessee Titans. The Titans would lose the divisional round of the playoffs. That that junction of the two thousand two thousand one years. The two thousand season. Uh, they had made it to the super Bowl the the year before, so that was kind of a shock. And George's performance and his numbers would start to decline and he would be let go

from the Titans. In two thousand three, he would go over the Cowboys. But he's only at the Cowboys for a season before. They said, yeah, no, we're done as well, and he just rehired. So I believe he just retired. He so lucky they get to retire. So yeah, lating bodily injury at all, brand damage whatsoever. No Madden. NFL two thousand two. Dwayne Culpepper the Minnesota Vikings. He had

a atrocious season. He would throw He's a quarterback. He throw twenty three interceptions and he would tie the NFL record for most fumbles in a season, which is not a record you want to tie or are not familiar. If you're the quarterback and you're throwing interceptions, that's not a good thing. No, receptions are good things. Interceptions are bad. Yes, the Vikings would finish five wins or uh yeah, five wins eleven losses for that season, and then Culpepper would

blow out his knees in two thousand five. And also there was a thing known as the Minnesota Vikings boat party scandal, which was house boats with lots and of ladies and sex and football players. And you can see how this would turn into a giant scandal. They flew ladies in from out of state. That's as far as we're gonna go with it. But his numbers would continue to decline. I mean, I think he was I think a two thousand eight might have been his last year,

but I don't remember. I don't have that written down, and looking at other notes here, he oh, that's what he did in two thousand eight. God, he really good. Yeah, the Lions. He would be the quarterback for the only team in NFL history to lose every single game in the season. So zero for sixteen. That's uh, that's how far the Mighty have fallen. Wow, yeah the game bam well, and we're just gonna go from one fall into another.

Michael Vick, people know Atlanta Falcons. He would break his phibia in the preseason game of two thousand and four or two thousand three excuse me season, So you know, he actually went on the cover and then like like a week later he broke his legs like that. It was super close. The Falcons would end up with five and eleven that year. But the problem is that most people know Vic would then later be found to be running a dogfighting ring. Vic went to prison. He can

never play ball again. He they just booted him out so hard and understandably just don't like that kind of thing, you know, really didn't. It sounds like there's a like a three year gap here. Basically at least we've said, well, the really really awful thing happens like three years later about yeah, almost all of these, you know, three years later, they're like, go, three years later, they blew up both their knees. Three years later, got convicted of being an

I'm going because I agree, let's keep going here. Madden NFL OH six would feature Donovan McNabb of the Philadelphia Eagles. He would be injured and put on the reserve list. He heard his ground. He also was in a dispute with another player on the team. This was all off off field, of course, so there was all kinds of tension in the squad and it was terrible. Yeah, okay, uh. And so they would end with a six of ten record that year, and they had been to the super

Bowl the year before as well. Madden NFL OH seven we got Sean Alexander of the Seattle Seahawks. Uh. He was actually named NFL m v P in the two thousand five season. But then he would hurt his foot and he would miss a half dozen games and then he would never be He would never go back to his previous level of performance. He was never good as he had been, and the Seahawks would let him go. In two thousand and eight, he would go to the Washington Redskins, but he would then be injured again and

further and then they would let him go. So he just continued to slide downhill. Gratitude for you. You know, this guy is out there playing its hard out for you all your knees busted. Sorry, we're letting you go. He did that because of us. We didn't ask you to do that. Later, Yeah, what have Madden NFL OH eight featured Vince Young of the Tennessee Titans, and Young would miss one game because of a injury, but he

would have an overall good season. The Titans would finish ten and six that year, and they would get to the playoffs, but they wouldn't ever go anywhere from there, and then he would his career was kind of sidelined because he was having an ongoing dispute with the head coach. So that did no good, no good things for him, and he would only start a couple of more games after that season. Mad NFL OH nine has Brett Farve

of the New York Jets. Now everybody probably knows Farv because he had been with the Packers forever, yeah, many many years. But Farv had been playing this I think I'm gonna retire at the end of this season game for several years. And so I don't think that the guys at Maden NFL really believed him, because a lot of people didn't believe him, and they said, we're gonna put him on the cover, and uh, then he said

he retired, and then he came back. And that's the one where you like he went with the Jets when he came back. That's because he said he was retiring. So of course they the Packers say well, we need a quarterback, and so they get a different quarterback and he says, I'm coming back, and they say, great, We've

traded you to the New York Jets. I bet I really like that because they had to re render the longer they put on a whole new cover, So I'm really probably pretty sure they were not happy with you. I bet there are some very very expensive collectors editions

that somebody has of him actually in the Green Bay Packers. Yeah, I can only imagine that probably Garners a couple of bucks from collectors to actually release any of the ones with the Packers uniform of the cover as far as I know, Yeah, they had to do a late release, they had to redo it, and they have a second release of it because of course the stinking thing comes out almost immediately after the end of the the Super

Bowl because it comes out early in the year. But then you know, he says I'm retiring, and they're like, okay, great, it's fine. And then he comes back. But now he comes back at the end of the year. Yeah, they had to fitter redo it. I bet that it's probably about half a million football fans out there who want to each version of it. Too possible, probably possible. But when he comes back, you know, farms, Uh, he doesn't exactly have the best year his his season. He has

a lot of poor performance. He doesn't do as good as people thought he was gonna And then there's the whole issue of there was a sexual harassment scandal going on, so somebody harassing him. Yeah, no, the other way around, because that's how that stuff works. Jomp Um. The Jets would finish the two thousand Eights even season nine and seven, which isn't bad, but they wouldn't get into the playoffs.

Um and then five would leave there and go play with the Minnesota Vikings in two thousand nine and ten before he would actually officially officially officially retire due to injuries. But it sounds like maybe he should have just retired in the first probably well, you know, he made a boatload of money from it, but he probably shouldn't have done it. Probably could have made a boatload of money with just endorsements and you know other stuff. You can

make money on endorsements. Holy crap, I back. You just got to be careful not to get caught like dog fighting or running dog fighting or harassing people. Yeah, I mean generally being a good human being as much required he like Tiger. Remember old Tiger. He had a hundred million dollars in commercial contracts and then he got sort of Oh my god, yeah, he lost a lot. Honestly, I don't think you even have to be a good person.

You just have to be I mean, it's not even you just have to not be a horrible person, Okay or no, you can be as horrible as you want. Just don't talk. I mean, yeah, there's that. Well, let's keep going. We're almost through my list here, mad and NFL ten. This is Troy Paula Malou of the Pittsburgh Steelers and Larry Fitzgerald of the Arizona Cardinals would both be featured on the cover that year, and they died in a car wrect together. No they didn't. They absconded

with millions of dollars. To know they didn't together. That's the first year that two players were actually on the cover, and it's actually one of the more interesting because it shows the pair of them actually running towards each other like they're gonna have some big tackle, explosive hits situation. But of course that's not what they're gonna do. But the point is people went, oh, my god, the curses

gonna get both of them. Oh hell well. Paula Malouf, for his part, would strain his MCL at the start of the season and miss a couple of four games, which it's it's it's a ligament in your knee. He would then strain his PCL, which is a different ligament in your knee, and he would only play I think he played five games that year. In the Steelers wouldn't have a very good season. They would be nine of seven and they wouldn't get into the playoffs. Fitzgerald, for

his part, he had a fantastic year. He scored a career high thirteen touchdowns and the Cardinals would win the NFC West Division. They time. I can totally see a new refinement to the curse now, which is that the guy on the left hand side still the guy on the right hand side actually actually gets a boost. He well, that the only year that they did two players. Yeah, I haven't, I don't. I didn't see anything from there that said there were two on the cover at the

same time. They always featured one prominently and that's it. So he was to do one because they have that endorsement thing. They have to pick is part of that endorsement thing. Yeah, how it works. Let's skip forward in time because so far we've been sequential, sequentially, sequentially, jumping one year at a time. But we're gonna skip a couple of years forward. We're gonna go to mad and NFL third team, which is Calvin Johnson of the Detroit Lions.

The year that he was nominated for or from, Johnson broke records in the NFL for receiving yardage. Uh he was. Actually he broke the record that Jerry Rice from the San Francisco forty nine years had had. And Rice, I mean Rice created that record or hit the point where he camera record and I want to say the mid nineties, I mean it had stood for a long time. Was not but Jerry Rice, he played it was many many,

many years. I think Rice was actually one of the players they featured in the pre game or halftime presentation of the latest Super Bowl. And that guy he you tell he's aging, but he's still really put together. The last time I looked, he looked great for his age espersonally for him played ball that long. But anyway, Johnson Um Johnson does all these great things. But once he's featured on the cover, this team has a terrible year there, four and twelve of that year, even though they've been

in the playoffs this season before. So terrible performance as a franchise overall. And then we're gonna jump ahead to Madden NFL. No, it was one of This is the one that drives me bonkers that they named it that, But they released it in twenty thirteen, and this is the version that was on PlayStation four and Xbox one. It's Adrian Peterson of the Minnesota Vikings. Peterson again in

two twelve. He had had or it had had an amazing season in twenty twelve, but then he has foot injuries and he only manages to play about twelve over fourteen games. Right in uh, he had he had a great twenty twelve sucks. Yeah, that was after after Madden had come out, after the cover had come out. The Vikings would have a five ten and one season, so five wins, ten losses, one draw, which I didn't even know you could get a draw in football, So that's weird.

That means I'm guessing that it was overtime, overtime, overtime, and the the ref set listen, I gotta go home. I left the oven on like I gotta go But during that season he would have a lot of horrible personal things go on, maybe not all of it, which he was innocent in. His two year old son would be assaulted by the son's mother's boyfriend and that boy would die not too long after that from the injuries.

And then, uh September twelve of two thousand and fourteen, Adrian Peterson would be indicted in mont Gramman County, Texas for reckless injury of his four year old son. He was hitting him with a piece of wood like you know, Billie Club style. And there are a lot of players in the NFL who have some aggression, is serious aggression there would know he Actually, I don't think there's nearly

as much Sterward's. I it's it's symptomatic of a lot of other things which we that is not But he would he would then be charged put under investigation of abuse of yet another son. So at that point he had three boys. Uh, the only one of them died. Yes, thankfully, the Vikings would drop him after the sixteen season. I was looking him up. I think that he played again. I think he got a contract somewhere else, and I

believe he played last year. But I'm not a d percent positive who he played four But you know, I mean he's he's with all the legal stuff. His career just kind of way right down into the tubes if nobody really wants to be associated with. No, it's really not good for a franchise to have a child beater

accused child beater. So you can just see like all these guy eyes where we started from, you know, eight years on, and then we've gone through a dozen of these guys and the just horrible luck and performance and personal stuff like it is just not going good for any of them. Yes, exactly, it's John Madden's fault or maybe e a sports I don't know. Yeah, every but everybody seems to have had negative impacts from being featured on this game, except John Madden himself, because that guy

seems to have just prospered everywhere. So that having been said, that's our story and we should probably get into the theories. Yeah, but first let's talk to our man on the sidelines, who's gonna give us a word from our sponsor. They remember all those great Westerns with John Wayne and Gary Cooper and how they'd ride into town and about to clean the place up. Great idea, because places if you if you look at them close, they are pretty grungy. And don't even get me started on the people who

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back from the replay. Yeah, So the first theory that we have is the curses real of the money I mean yeah, no, I mean sports people are of the people who are superstitious in the world. I think sports people are maybe the most No, no, no, sailors are the worst. The sports fans are I don't know. I mean ship people let women on board. Now they've overcome certain superstitions. It just seems like perfect to call them boat people. It's a derogatory turma. Actually, it's a microaggression,

devine actually. But the curses are real. You've heard of the curse of the Billy goat, right, is just Billy go gruff? Now Billy go rough? Okay, what are you talking about? Uh? Yeah, I got the curse of the Billy Goat. It was a real deal that afflicted the Chicago Cubs for every one years. Oh, this is like the curse of the Bambino of those sports curses. Yeah. One of their fans, this guy who wanted the Billy goat tavern his name was. His name was like Billy Sianna.

Billy Sianna, I think. And he had at a pet goat that he would take to the Cubs games. And he was ejected from the fourth game of the World Series and on his way out the door, he basically said, the Cubs will not win again. That was his curse, and his goat were leaving out the door, and so the Cubs. In short, it was word. The Cubs did not win again for seventy one years. It took him along and a lot of fans actually, and they did all kinds of stuff to try to lift the curse,

you know, and it did nothing work. And finally something happened in finally and they want he probably died or something. Billy Sianis died in seventy The goat died. Yeah, yeah, the goat probably forever for the Goats lineage, finally died Yeah, it's hard to say. Maybe the last maybe the last original fan who was present when it was cast. Maybe he finally died, Maybe that was the final straw could All I know is I played football in high school and I played with a guy who had a lucky undershirt.

Which was fine. He'd wear it in practice, he'd wear it two games, you know, it was it was his lucky shirt. But the problem, of course, was he hadn't wash the lucky shirt. Yeah, so stuck but smelled bad. That was part of this strategy. People didn't want to tack That would be a good way to do it. And you know, the thing about about curses is that it to be real and affect people, all that's required

is people believing in them. And while a number of the players and the mad and NFL Curse have come out and said they don't believe in the curse, well clear they don't. And then you know, but then there's been some of the ones that have dodged. What's his name that's on that was just won the Super Bowl again and um then this last year, I can't remember, yea, na it was something else. Brady, It's Brady Brady. Yah, that guy Okay, that guy is on the latest cover

and people were freaked out. But Brady was like that stupid, I don't believe in that, and it apparently worked for him. Yeah he did so far. So far, We'll see what happens next season. Three year lag time that well, it's there's three years it can take. It can affect you, but it affects you right away. It's not as if it waits till the third year to strike. But what I do find funny is the people who have dodged it.

They said, I don't believe in the curse, and then they went about some pretty you know, they went to get out from under it, uh, notably from the San

Diego Chargers. There's the They're running back Ladinian Tomlinson, who this guy was selected to be on the cover in two thousand and seven, and when it was announced that they were gonna not they wanted him to be on the cover, the San Diego fans went nuts, and not in a good way, and the nuts in a bad way because they did not want that to happen, and they were terrified of what it would do to him, to such a degree that they created a website calls Save lt from Madden dot Com, which, by the way,

is on the way back machine. I was spinning through it. Oh yeah, it's I mean, it's a two thousand seven website. It's something. Actually, it probably is pretty flashy. No, it's not flashy. It's very static, but it's it's not that great, but it's very funny. Did these guys take themselves totally seriously? Was there a bit of tongue in cheek about the whole time? I did not get that impression. They seriously believe that this was pretty real and they did not

want their favorite player on it. And for his own part, Tomlinson would eventually turn down the offer of being on the cover, but he would say it was because of contract and negotiation issues and basically they weren't offering him enough money, which I call convenient reasoning. Well, if it's going to end your career you now, you might as well get top dollar for it. But you know, the thing is, is that another way that this curse might actually be real? Is Joe alluded or brought this up

a little bit in the beginning of the story. Is the fans and the fans behavior and the way they're going about things and that is specifically by confirmation bias, because initially e A was making the selections of who would go on the cover, which you kind of makes sense. Vote. Now they let the fans vote, so believe it or not.

As shocking as this is, people go on there and they nominate for the however players they don't like that guy on that other team that you hate so much so that those guys can suffer the effects of the curse, and they downvote their favorite players to help spare them from the curse. Well, I mean another way, I guess we could say this is real, or maybe it's confirmation

by us. Maybe it's fake. There's a there's a whole heck of a lot of personal drama and injuries that happened in the NFL, all by themselves without Yeah, so you know, if if we're saying and then three years later he broke his knee and it was the curse, I tell you the curse. Sorry, it's not a great departure from that. Yeah, but yeah it is. It is not unheard of people to get injured in the NFL.

But that I mean, that's in a way that it is technically real, right, but maybe not as real and I think that's that's probably a great lead in for the other theory, because this is one of those day or nay kind of stories. Well, you know, listen, I don't think Choopy could put on a set of pads and actually run up and down the field because he's a little guy and those fans are kind of heavy. But he's actually just he's just gonna let a little

air out of the football. So most farther, I don't think that was Chupy No, No, it was probably somebody else. So well, let's move on to this whole curse thing is fake. So I think I talked about Yeah, I did. I know, I talked about confirmation bias just a couple of seconds ago. But there's another really good reason this could be fake, and that is what is known as

regression to the mean. And regression to the mean is a very fancy way of saying that things that are outside of the norm, that are abnormal there, you know, there's a spike tend to very quickly come back with the normal expected track of things. So if there's a runner who in a race suddenly runs ten seconds faster in the dash than he normally did, and by the way, it's Hussein Bolt suddenly and in the next race he runs to his normal run. Well, that's regression to mean

his normal pace. That means things. It's what must goes up must come back down, essentially. And usually these people are at the peaks of their careers when they're picked, you know, exactly, So they're at the peak, which means that they they just had a really really, really really good season and we're going to feature them for it, and then they're going to go back to normal and it's going to appear that they are failing because they had a phenomenal run and now they are going back

to their normal performance levels. In football, as we said, is such a difficult beat them up meat grinder of a game that to push yourself that hard. I mean, guys that run amazing yardagin throw these amazing number of recepted passes, received passes, completely received passes. Nonetheless, they are pushing it and they're pushing themselves physically, and they are getting the hell beat out of it. I would I would say also there is a certain amount of luck involved.

I mean, there's a lot of skill involved, but there's a certain amount of luck involved in completing that pass or you know, and it's not it's not just down to wow, he threw it really well. It's also he caught that really well. So it depends. It depends on the other players. And that's the thing is it's conceivable you could actually have the following it. You're great year

in the following year. Actually you're every bit is good, but the other guys screwing up, you know, and and and so you just like, yeah, yeah, or the other team that you faced last year was having a bad year. Now they're having an okay year. Suddenly you're a great

performance because it's being balanced. Yeah, Or maybe last year you were making you're the quarterback and you're making these kind of crappy throwers, but the guys at the other end were talented enough they could correct and still catch your crappy throng. And they those guys got traded off, and now, you know, and so you're still a crappy thrower. Yeah, there's and we thought they were the quarterback, but according to Joe, they're the thrower. Yeah. I kind of like that.

I did the better name. Well, that's what you do, and you're throwing the ball and the quarterback you're gonna throw the ball. Okay, Okay, I like it because I mean, you know, if you're not the quarterback, you can pass the ball, but you can't really. So there was I know, I sent in you guys this article. There was a great article by I G. N where they looked at the Madden Curse and what they did is they used stats to try and figure out if indeed it was

a real thing. And what they did is they compared the guys that were on the covers and their performance prior and after that two players who were nominated as m v P or guys that were considered top ten players that season. What the stats showed is that the m v P s had a sharper decline in performance the season after they were named MVP than the guys that were considered to be Madden Curse sufferers. So there was, as we talked about, that whole regression to the mean

that seemed to be more pronounced. And they also looked at things because we talked about the injuries and missing games and that kind of stuff. They looked at, Okay, well, m VPS, Madden Curse guys, and top ten players, what is the average number of games missed than the following season, and it turns out the the Madden cover players were actually missing fewer games than the other two test groups,

so it really, yeah, no, not at all. So it does seem to be this every you're picked when you're at your peak, and it's just it's so hard to maintain that level of performance that everybody says you're there's something causing that, some extraneous force that's causing you to not play as well, when in reality you're just kind

of human. Yeah, you're normal human beings, exactly right. You're a year older, yeah, and yeah, and professional sports a years a year and age is a huge deal, and it can be all those injuries pile up to the years that are in their mid to late thirties and mid forties. You don't see a whole lot of those dudes in it all. And there's a good reason for it, because it it's a young man's game and it beats him up and spits them out. And you know, the funny thing is about the Madden curses, it's not the

only cursed out there for the NFL. So there there was for a long time, there was the Sports Illustrated cover that and it's not the swimsuit issue. Yeah, there's the Campbell Soup curse because they were doing they used to put players on the labels and then for a while it was Campbell Chunky Sup. They have them advertised, they would have them in commercials. Yeah, and they have their moms on and stuff. They were really funny. But these guys also seemed to perform poorly after that, So

it appears that it's the same thing. When you're at the top, they pick you, and then once they pick you, you go back to normal, which is why I'm glad that we've never get picked up on television, because then we would just would just vall apart all yeah next week one. That's why we turned down The cover of People magazine is yeah, the World's Sexiest podcast. People Magazine? Is that that magazine that just got some people. It's the Guy down the Street. That is a zine that

the Take down the Road makes. That's the one about the British royal family and a few movie stars. Okay, well, I'm glad to know that. Okay, okay, um. So personally, I am of the opinion that while it seems compelling on the outside and fun and easy on the outside. I really think the whole thing it's just it's not it is just just stat I think this is an excellent example of causing or correlation does not equal causation exactly, or maybe it's the other way around, whichever one it is.

That you know, just because the stats reflect something doesn't mean that that it is the cause of those stats, right when, especially in the short term, and you don't look at the greater everything else all at once. Yeah, on board of that idea, Joe, every but so yeah and welve that I think that we have saw this. Okay, football players, stop obsessing about it. Go ahead and vote for your favorite player to be on that to be

on the because he'll make some money. It won't destroy his career hopefully probably the illicit dog fighting or you know, yeah that don't don't do that. That will probably no dog fighting, no house boats with lots of ladies that are in various states of undress. Don't do that, guys, that's bad. Just be like a decent human. Yeah, try that, Try it out for a while. Seeah, it works works out better for you. Okay, Well that is going to

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