Saquon Barkley is the EA Sports Madden 26 cover star.

Ahead of the 14th of August release date, the 2024 Offensive Player of the Year has been chosen to front the cover.

He becomes the second Eagles in history to be on the Madden front cover, after Donovan McNabb in 2006.

However, should Eagles fans be concerned by the infamous Madden curse?

The curse has been predominately discussed about in this century. Before the mid 90’s, John Madden was on every cover.

It was not until John Madden and Madden NFL ’95, that were released in 1994, that an athlete featured alongside him.

Madden 2001 was the first instalment of the game without Madden. Eddie George of the Tennessee Titans was the chosen athlete.

He managed to avoid a curse, with 1,509 yards and 14 touchdowns that season. Despite these statistics, he did have a costly fumble in the playoffs that season.

Daunte Culpepper and the Vikings went 4-7 in the year that their quarterback was placed on the game, but the first real examples of the curse came in Madden 2003 and 2004.

Marshall Faulk was selected in 2002 but an ankle injury disrupted his season and he failed to reach 1,000 yards ever again in his career. Michael Vick was selected for the 2004 edition of the game and is arguably the most infamous player on the game. He broke his leg a day after the game’s release day.

The aforementioned cover athlete of the 2006 edition McNabb broke a streak of five straight Pro Bowl appearances, suffered with a hernia issue and had a public falling out with Terrell Owens.

Shaun Alexander, Vince Young and Peyton Hillis saw performances decline after being named on the cover, but it would not be until 2018 where the biggest example of the Madden curse would take centre stage.

Antonio Brown was selected in 2018 to be on the front cover of Madden 19. When the wide receiver was selected, he was on a Hall of Fame jacket trajectory.

With six 1,000-yard seasons in the seven seasons that had gone before, he was easily one of the greatest receivers of his generation.

Whilst he recorded 1,297 yards and 15 touchdowns in 2018, the latter the best of his career, what transpired afterwards is a huge example of the curse being at play.

Signs of his issues started to come to light towards the end of the season, after a public fallout with quarterback Ben Roethlisberger. He requested a trade and joined the Oakland Raiders. He was gone from the team before the season began after disciplinary issues.

Brown would play one game for the New England Patriots, released due to sexual and personal misconduct claims. He would end up winning a Lombardi Trophy with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers in the 2020 season, scoring in Super Bowl LV against the Kansas City Chiefs.

Brown seemed to have cleaned up his act, but further disciplinary issues continued to surround him. He would leave the field mid game at MetLife Stadium in the 2021 season and never return to the NFL.

San Francisco 49ers running back Christian McCaffrey has been the most recent victim of the Madden curse in the 2024 season, missing all but four games in the season after being Offensive Player of the Year in 2023. The Niners missed the playoffs after reaching the Super Bowl a season prior.

Whilst McCaffrey was a big victim of the curse, but no player has been affected by it more than Brown.

Despite this, not every player has been a victim of the curse.

The best example of a player breaking the curse is Patrick Mahomes in Madden 20 The game was released in 2019, a few months on from the Kansas City Chiefs quarterback winning an MVP.

After a historic sophomore season, this was in prime position to be another example of the curse. Instead, Mahomes went on to win Super Bowl LIV and be named MVP of the game.

He has since gone on to reach the AFC Championship in every season, reaching four further Super Bowls and winning two in the process.

Detroit Lions wide receiver Calvin Johnson was named the cover athlete for Madden 13 in 2012 and Tom Brady was the cover athlete for Madden 18 in 2017.

Johnson went on to break the single season record for receiving yards (1,964) during that campaign, a record that still stands today.

He had 1,000 yards or more in the three years that followed before retirement, with 34 touchdowns in the four seasons after being announced as the cover athlete.

Brady was named MVP for the 2017 season, the same season he was put on the cover. He threw for 4,577 yards, 32 touchdowns and just eight interceptions as the Patriots reached Super Bowl LII.

The Patriots would end up losing 41-33 to the Philadelphia Eagles in Minnesota, but Brady would put up numbers in arguably the greatest ever losing Super Bowl performance by a quarterback

He would end the day with a 58% completion percentage, 505 passing yards, three touchdowns and zero interceptions. He could not have done any more in that game.

He would go on to win two further Super Bowls to take his career total to seven, winning one with the Patriots and one with the Buccaneers. He successfully fought off the curse.

Not only do the Eagles have to be wary of the Madden curse, but also the Super Bowl hangover, which happens to a lot of teams who play in it the previous season.

The aforementioned McCaffrey struggles coincided with a 6-11 record for San Francisco.

There are a lot of parallels between McCaffrey and Barkley. They both had great starts to their careers, had injury problems but moved to better teams and their health issues went away.

Moving from being the bell cow and the sole super star in the offense to being one of many stars saw both McCaffrey and Barkley having career years and reach the Super Bowl.

There is every chance that Barkley suffers with injuries once again, just as he did with the New York Giants. With offensive coordinator Kellen Moore the new head coach of the New Orleans Saints, the offense could see a regression under new OC Kevin Patullo.

2,005 rushing yards and 13 touchdowns in the regular season is a hard act to follow for anyone. Add in an extra 499 rushing yards and five touchdowns in the postseason and this is one of the greatest ever running back seasons.

It is hard to not see Barkley having some sort of regression, given that only nine players in NFL history have run for 2,000 yards. It remains to be seen just how much he will regress, whether it is having 100 yards less or 1,000.

Andy Davies

Saquon is on Madden: Should Eagles fans be concerned?

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