In what has become an eerily scary trend in the NFL world, Troy Polamalu is now the latest Madden cover guy to suffer some sort of setback during the year immediately following his selection (for those who are unaware, here is a quick synopsis of this dreadful phenomenon). 

Will the Madden curse put two NFL players on the shelf in the same year?

In the season’s opening game on Thursday night, the Pittsburgh Steelers triumphed over the Tennessee Titans 13-10 in overtime.  Ben Roethlisberger led the Steelers on three clutch drives in the 4th quarter and overtime which set Pittsburgh up for possible scores on three straight possessions.  The defending Super Bowl champs only scored field goals on two of those possessions, and a Hines Ward fumble kept them from scoring on the other.

But the Tennessee offense was dreadful.  They were out of sync…and so many blocking assignments were missed which kept the Titan offense from gaining any momentum.

Although the Steelers came out the victors, the news on Polamalu certainly made them feel like the victims.  Early diagnosis has the injury as a mild MCL sprain – and the estimate for the All-Pro safety’s recovery period has been set at 3-6 weeks.

Given all of the aforementioned history surrounding this Madden thing, there has never been a dual entry.  This year’s cover of Madden 10 is shared between Polamalu and Larry Fitzgerald.  I’m not implying that anything is going to happen to Fitzgerald – but if I’m Ken Wisenhunt and the Cardinals get out to a comfortable lead, the superstar receiver would be watching more plays from the sidelines than he normally would.

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