The story of our entire season comes down to this, plain and simple: The Madden Curse

From what I’ve seen, he’s healthier than ever.

Unfortunately, Polomalu was the one affected.

Prior to 1999, every annual installment of the Madden NFL series primarily featured John Madden on its cover.

In 1999, Electronic Arts selected Garrison Hearst to appear on the PAL version’s cover, and has since featured one of the league’s top players on every annual installment. Since then, certain players have experienced a decline in performance, usually due to an injury.

Quarterback Michael Vick appeared on the cover of Madden NFL 2004, and suffered a leg injury that sidelined him for most of the 2003 season.

Ray Lewis was the face of Madden NFL 2005, and in week 6 of the 2005 season, suffered a season ending hamstring injury.

Donovan McNabb was featured on the cover of Madden NFL 2006, and on November 6, 2005, suffered a sports hernia, which ended his season.

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. As a result, Alexander’s rushing statistics were substantially less than those from the previous season, and he never returned to true form.

Madden NFL 2008’s cover featured Vince Young, the starting quarterback of the Tennessee Titans. On September 7 2008 Vince Young sustained a knee injury which put him out of the game. He had not previously regained his starting quarterback position since he was relieved by backup quarterback Kerry Collins, but regained it on October 29, 2009.

Brett Favre appeared on the cover of Madden NFL 2009, and did not miss any games. However, he later admitted to suffering a torn biceps injury, which Favre says may have affected his gameplay during the final five games of his first and last season with the New York Jets, who missed the playoffs at 9-7 after starting the season 8-3.

On September 10 2009, Strong Safety Troy Polamalu of the Pittsburgh Steelers, who was featured on the cover of Madden NFL 10, along with Larry Fitzgerald, sprained his MCL in the season opener against the Tennessee Titans.

The curse continues.

I wrote this is another thread, but feel so strongly about it, I’m going to repost here.

I love our defense, and I am liking our depth. Even without Aaron Smith and Troy (for most of the game), we allowed them only 218 offensive yards, which is the best we’ve done since the Browns whimpered for 197 against us.

On the ground, we held the Bengals to 61 net yards via 29 attempts – an average of 2.1 ypc. We tackled them behind the LoS 4 times for 10 lost yards in total. Of their total of 13 first downs, only 3 were achieved on the ground. Benson carried the ball 7 times, which is far from a complete game, but he managed a grand total of 22 yards (3.1 ypc). That’s not bad considering what he and his O-line have done to other teams. In our last meeting, Benson averaged 4.8. Scott finished with 33 yards on 13 carries (2.5 ypc).

We held their offense to zero touchdowns.

Carson Palmer managed 178 yards. In our last meeting, he got 183. Those are his two worst games this season. Harrison got our only sack (not counting the ankle grab on the kicker), which is not impressive. However The Diesel got pressure several times, he batted down another pass, and W. Gay apparently played his best game. It would seem our non-star players are stepping up. Ochocinco had two catches for 29 yards. I suspect we need to credit Ike for keeping 85 out of the limelight.

Gripes about the 5 penalties are legit, but consider that we are 3rd in the fewest penalties called against us and 9th in terms of yardage (Fox stats). A little perspective is in order.

The Bengals got a field goal after starting a drive on our 14.

Had this been a W for us, we’d be crowing about how dominant the defense was. There is a significant reason to be hopeful if we have a rematch in the post season. Our defense has owned the Bengals twice. Today, they allowed 3 drives for 9 points. The rest came on mistakes by the offense and special teams. I think its more likely that our offense solves their defense, than them solving ours.

Troy plays on the defense. Our defense is not the problem.

Without Troy we had to witness Cutler and Palmer connect on those excruciating long drives where an inch here and an inch there given up on those crossing patterns and out routes in converting into first downs and winning touchdowns.

I truly believe that those critical inches would have been filled up by Polomalu and resulted in either incomplete passes or interceptions leading to W’s.

I am not saying that the defense is a total problem without Troy. What i am saying is without Troy, our defense loses to the contenders and we’re nothing but a wild card. With Troy, he puts our defense over the top against the contenders.

we just agree that it was Alge Crumpler who hurt Polamalu’s knee, and not the madden curse

you’re not a champion. The other guys need to pick it up. The Steelers would never have won a single SB if it was only about one guy. Get real.

That’s how special he is. He puts us over the top.

Once again: With Polomalu = Super Bowl contender.

Without him = Wild Card.

Deny it all you want. The numbers don’t lie.

2009 without Polomalu: 1-3.