Cursed

I love to play fantasy football, and each year it seems like I end up with more teams than the year previous. I limit myself to one league per year with an entry fee and prizes, and give that team most of my attention--this year, the fee and prizes were higher than ever. So you can imagine how psyched I was when I drew the number one pick--there was no question who I was going to take: last year's MVP, Shaun Alexander of the Seahawks. I couldn't lose with him, right?

Not even a week after the draft, I picked up my copy of Madden 07...and went to my league's message board and left a post with an expletive title, because there was my #1 pick on the box's cover.

Let's look at past Madden cover boys (excluding the big man himself) and their fates (all years listed are release years, not "model years"--the 1999 cover boys were for Madden 2000, and so on):

1999 - Barry Sanders: Shared the cover with Madden, and avoided the curse...by retiring before the season started.
1999 - Dorsey Levens: Alternate cover; his '99 season was pretty good, but he was pretty much done after that.
2000 - Eddie George: Yeah, anyone remember him? Didn't think so. He did OK in 2000 but pretty much dropped off the planet due to injuries. Too bad--he dodged the Heisman Curse, only to fall victim to the dreaded Madden curse.
2001 - Daunte Culpepper: Suffered his first knee injury during the '01 season; missed the last third of the year.
2002 - Marshall Faulk: He claims he's coming back, but he suffered what thus far has proven to be a career-shortening ankle injury during this season.
2003 - Michale Vick: Broke his leg in the preseason; missed most of the regular season.
2004 - Ray Lewis: The only defensive player on the box appears to have missed most of the curse. He missed the last game of the season due to injury, and failed to get any interceptions, but other than that, he had an average season for him.
2005 - Donovan McNabb: Hernia. T.O. Your humble blogger laffs and laffs.

Coincidence or spooky curse? It was revealed earlier this week and confirmed today that after three disappointing weeks, Alexander will miss a month or more with a broken bone in his foot. Man, I wish I'd gone with LaDanian Tomlinson.