Pittsburgh Steelers Antonio Brown might have returned to the football field for those voluntary workouts, but there one place he will be able to avoid all season.
And, Steelers fans should let out a collective cheer. Antonio Brown will not appear on the Madden NFL cover for the 2015 season.
PHEW.
Antonio Brown was amongst an unfortunate small pool of young players in Madden NFL 16’s Cover contest. There were only four total candidates with Brown being one of them.
The other three contestants were Cardinals CB Patrick Peterson, Giants WR Odell Beckham, Jr., and Patriots TE Rob Gronkowski. Brown and Peterson failed the final cut, and it will either be OBJ or Gronk appearing on the cover.
EA Sports will reveal the cover on Wednesday afternoon. Out of principle I hope that it’s Gronkowski that gets the nod. Not because I like him, but because I fully believe in the ‘Madden Curse.’
The curse began all the way back in 1999 when Garrison Hearst appeared on the cover, only to break his ankle the same season. Since then, 15 of the 17 previous players to grace the cover either sustained season ending injuries, were plagued by injuries all season, and/or had a significant drop off in previous years’ performances.
The only two players to ‘break’ the curse? Larry Fitzgerald in 2009 and Richard Sherman in 2014. Fitz achieved strong receiving stats that year, while Richard Sherman still displayed his dominance as a corner even though he sustained an elbow injury in the final game of the regular season.
You’ll remember that the Steelers Troy Polamalu shared the cover with Fitzgerald and received the full brunt of the curse. The future HOF sprained his MCL in the first half of Week 1 of the 2009 season, and was forced to miss the next four games. He played in three more games later that season, only to injure his PCL in November.
An 88% rate of failure for those who find themselves posing on the most popular football video game franchise in history.
With the Steelers offense set to break more records this season and be a huge force to be reckoned with this year, you better believe I’m ecstatic that Brown failed to make the cover.
As long as Super Bowls are on the line, I hope to never see a Steelers player on that cover ever again.
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