The Madden Curse Alive and Well: Troy Polamalu Injured
The Madden Curse relates to players who appear on the cover of the popular Madden NFL video game who always seem to find themselves getting injured or having some other crisis. Troy Polamalu is its latest victim and we haven't even gotten to Sunday's full slate of games yet.
Polamalu, a game-changing talent who might be one of the NFL's most irreplaceable players, sprained the medial collateral ligament in his left knee during a blocked field goal in Pittsburgh's 13-10 overtime victory over Tennessee on Thursday night. He could be out up to 6 weeks.
"Troy is one in a million," defensive coordinator Dick LeBeau said. "We'll play well without him, but you don't replace Troy."
The Madden Curse has become a favorite NFL prop bet in recent years.
"We had odds a little while back on whether he's miss a game b/c he was on the cover of Madden," said Dave Stanley of Sportsbook.com.
That bet already paid out, assuming he doesn't make some sort of miraculous recovery before next week's game.
Brett Favre was on the cover of Madden 09 and looked as if he might have escaped the curse, but he was subsequently injured with a torn biceps ligament and his performance declined during the last six games of the 2008 NFL Season.
Michael Vick appeared on the cover of Madden NFL 2004, and suffered a leg injury that sidelined him for most of the 2003 season. Donovan McNabb was featured on the cover of Madden 06, on November 19th, 2006 in a game against Tennessee, McNabb tore his ACL while attempting to scramble out of bounds which left him sidelined for the remainder of the 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 08's cover featured Vince Young, the starting quarterback of the Tennessee Titans. On September 7th 2008 Vince Young sustained a knee injury which put him out of the game. He has not yet regained his starting quarterback position since he was relieved by backup quarterback Kerry Collins.
The injury hasn't impacted Pittsburgh's Super Bowl odds.
Pittsburgh Steelers would pay out $800 for every $100 bet should they win the 2010 Super Bowl.
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Carrie Stroup, Gambling911.com Senior Reporter
