The infamous curse of Madden seems to have returned, as Christian McCaffrey, star of the cover of Madden NFL 25 and player for the San Francisco 49ers, has been ruled out for four games.
Sky News reported on the transfer of McCaffrey to injury reserve due to calf tightness and Achilles tendonitis, a month after appearing on the cover of EA Sports’ latest American football installment, which was released on August 13, 2024.
McCaffrey could return as early as October 10, 2024 to play against the Seattle Seahawks, so This injury is not expected to be too serious.but it does bring to mind The so-called Madden curse. This fan theory suggests that Any athlete who appears on the cover of Madden NFL suffers a career setbackeither due to injury or general poor performance.
Image from EA Sports
CBS Sports analyzed The story of the Madden curse after McCaffrey’s announcement as the cover star of 2024, and concluded that, between 2000 and 2024, 58% of players had problems after appearing on the coverHowever, McCaffrey could increase that percentage slightly.
Hopefully, the injury won’t affect the athlete’s career or the 49ers’ season, and it definitely won’t affect his appearance on the cover of Madden NFL 25.
The last memorable case of a major change on the cover of a sports title was probably with NBA 2K18when star Kyrie Irving demanded a trade from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Boston Celtics after 2K Sports had already printed promotional material for the game. So they had to scrap the Cavaliers version, redo and reprint all the covers with Irving wearing a Boston Celtics uniform.
He Madden NFL 25 Review of IGN Spain gave the game a score of 8/10, describing it as “a more than appealing title for fans of the sport.”
