Is John Madden a Modern BOOGEY MAN...

... or men!

This may surprise many of you. I enjoy football. Let me be more specific. I enjoy Baltimore Ravens' football. They are afterall my home team and I did grow up as a Colt's kid and they snuck out town in the middle of the night leaving Baltimore without a team for years. Being born in Baltimore it was only natural that through nuture I become a football fan... although I never became a baseball fan. I don't know why. Anyway, I remember my brothers and I even had Baltimore Colts' uniforms and helmets when we were kids. There's even a photo... somewhere and if I can find it I will post it sometime in the future. There is - like most everyhing with me - a story behind our having Colt's uniforms... and this story involves my dad.

We lived at 528 North Castle Street in East Baltimore right around the corner from the Northeast Market and a football's throw from John Hopkins hospital. Our neighbor was a doctor from Green Bay, Wisconsin. He was a huge cheesehead (the name for Green Bay fans). He was a super nice neighbor. One Christmas - I think I was nine - the doctor bought us three boys complete Green Bay Packer uniforms and a ball! My dad was not thrilled with this choice of colors and he rejected the gift saying that our home, "is a Baltimore Colt's home. My boys will not wear those uniforms." The doc was pretty cool about the whole thing and he took the uniforms back and exchanged them for Colt's uniforms.
Anyway, I like football. I don't love it though. For instance if it's a real nice Sunday that's good for making photographs, I will go and make photographs. I can catch the highlights later. Anyway I am really digressing from my main point in writing this. So let me get back on track. I like football and I also like video games , so ergo I like football video games and my favorite - Madden 2005 - may prove to be a curse to Baltimore Raven's defensive king... Ray Lewis. Read on to find out how John Madden may be a boogey man for football players! I really hope the curse doesn't happen. Damn that would suck.

Will Ray Lewis be cursed?
Star linebacker will front Madden 2005, but hopes to avoid its tainted legacy.
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) – If you've got Ray Lewis in your fantasy football league, you might want to consider trading him.

Electronic Arts has announced that the Baltimore Ravens linebacker will be the cover athlete for the latest entry in its Madden football series. On one hand, this is a coup for Lewis. Getting your face on the cover of a top-selling video game is the modern equivalent of the Wheaties box. It's something most athletes aspire to.

But the PR boost carries a dark side as well: The Madden Curse.

You may have heard of this. Basically, each year, EA selects a promising, well-known player for the Madden cover. For the past four years, the player to front the game has seen their career suffer.

Take Michael Vick, who graced Madden's cover last year. He was on a roll coming into the year, having set four NFL records in the 2002 season and established a reputation as one of the games' most electrifying players. Early in the 2003 pre-season, Vick broke his leg in the first quarter of a game against, ironically enough, the Baltimore Ravens.

2002's cover boy Marshall Faulk of the St. Louis Rams didn't fare much better. Coming off his seventh 1,000 yard season, Faulk – and the Rams - seemed untouchable. Faulk injured his ankle, missed six games and the Rams didn't last long in the playoffs.

Minnesota Vikings quarterback Daunte Culpepper? He fronted Madden in 2001 and wasn't much luckier. His cover-gracing season ended early, with a knee injury against Chicago.

The curse started four years ago with Tennessee running back Eddie George. Coming into the season, he was one of the leading forces in the Titans lineup and many expected him to lead the team to its second straight Super Bowl. Instead, he had his worst season ever, averaging just three yards per carry. And, naturally, he was injured several times in the season, including a brutal hit in the 2001 post season. The man who administered that hit? Ray Lewis.

So, you see, things have come full circle of sorts for Madden. Sweet irony, isn't it? It's kind of a shame, actually, that Tennesee and Baltimore aren't facing each other this year. Our sports columnist Chris Isidore told me he cannot remember an offensive player ever injuring a defensive one – but if Eddie George and Ray Lewis were on the same field this year, I wouldn't rule it out.

Naturally, Lewis is focusing on the positive aspects of being on the cover. Any game cover is incredible exposure for an athlete – and the game Lewis is representing just happens to be a consistent best seller. "Madden NFL 2004" sold more than 5 million copies.

"To be on the cover of Madden NFL 2005 is the ultimate honor," said Lewis in a statement. "With the focus on defense in the game this year, I knew it was my chance."

In fairness, cover curses aren't exclusive to Madden. Sports Illustrated, a corporate cousin in the Time Warner family, has been accused of having a jinx attached to its front cover for years. And in 2002, the magazine confessed to having found 913 verifiable instances where the featured athlete or team suffered a demonstrable misfortune or decline. That was roughly 37 percent of the covers.

(For those keeping score at home, this will be the 15th Madden game – so the curse has stuck on roughly 29 percent of the games.)

And other publishers, including Sega, Sony (SNE: Research, Estimates)-owned 989 Studios and other EA (ERTS: Research, Estimates) titles have seen their cover athletes lose luster once the game hit shelves. And it's usually just a short matter of time before idiots like me start writing about the curse. (Hey, I'm just getting an early start this year.)

Then again, maybe by coming (sort of) full circle, the Madden cover curse will come to an end. For the sake of the athletes' health, that'd be nice. But it would sure take away a fun annual story.