The Madden Curse was set to take another great, but Patrick Mahomes was able to overcome and lead the Kansas City Chiefs to a Super Bowl win.
There are a ton of sports curses out there.
We as a society loves being superstitious, so we make these so-called curses up as we go. There’s the Sports Illustrated curse. There are the Drake and Justin Bieber curses, although the Toronto Raptors winning the NBA Championship might have put at least one of those to rest.
Through it all, there’s no curse as popular and powerful as the Madden curse.
It all started with Garrison Hearst, the first person not named John Madden on the cover of his video game. He led the San Francisco 49ers to the playoffs, but suffered one of the worst ankle breaks we’ve ever seen. It was so bad, a bone died in his foot.
Barry Sanders was named the cover athlete, only to retired weeks later. Daunte Culpepper had a debilitating knee injury and a promising career was never the same. Michael Vick fractured his leg in 2003. Donovan McNabb suffered a groin injury the season he was on the cover, a knee injury the year after, and was never the top-five quarterback he was before his cover appearance.
So on and so forth.
Then there’s Patrick Mahomes. It looked like Mahomes was going to be yet another victim of the Madden Curse. He suffered what looked sure to be a season-ending knee injury in the middle of October. He dislocated his kneecap, but there was a real possibility he could have torn any of his ACL, MCL or PCL. Even worse, he could have broken his patella. Instead, it was a simple dislocation and he was back in three weeks.
He took a little time to get back to vintage form. He came back in Week 10, giving him seven games to get back on track. That allowed him to build confidence in the knee, something he desperately needed in the Super Bowl.
If he returned in, say, Week 15, that might not be enough time to build up the confidence in the knee. He needed that time, because by the postseason, he was unstoppable.
Mahomes had a 12-yard run on a 3rd-and-11 in the first quarter that led to the Chiefs first touchdown and lead of the game. They capped that drive with a one-yard run from Mahomes into the end zone. Then, on the go-ahead drive, he put Kansas City within four yards of the end zone and finished the drive off with a passing touchdown to Damien Williams.
If the Chiefs get a field goal on that second drive instead of a touchdown, that last touchdown only ties the game, and the whole complexion of the game is completely different.
It all starts with Mahomes being too strong for the Madden Curse.
Apparently, Mahomes’ anatomy was the reason he was able to come back so quickly from the knee injury. It appears the Madden Curse was not aware of this. Neither were the San Francisco 49ers.
Now Mahomes is a cover athlete and a Super Bowl champion.