EA Sports’ decision to use former (and possibly current?) Green Bay Packers quarterback Brett Favre for the cover of their 20th installment of the Madden NFL Football may not have been a wise one.

The decision was made by EA around early April of this year, before the whole “should he/shouldn’t he” situation regarding Favre’s apparent un-retirement from the league had started.  As of this writing, Favre has not yet decided whether or not to show up for day one of training camp, there are even talks in Packers management of a possible Favre trade in the works.  The whole situation is awkward, and especially stressful for Packers fans and one of the NFL’s all-time greatest players.

This year’s Favre cover isn’t the first story surrounding the player who graces the cover of Madden each year.  Lots has been said about the so-called “Madden Curse” in which the athlete that appears on the cover always seems to do poorly in the upcoming season - through either general unimpressive performances, (think Vince Young, Shaun Alexander and Donovan McNabb are examples) or by suffering a season-ending injury.

Regardless of the eventual outcome, the whole fiasco makes Favre an odd choice for the flagship football game of the video game industry, Even if it was unintended, unless he comes back from retirement, plays for the Pack, and wins the superbowl in ‘09, having Favre on the cover makes EA seem out of touch with football, and cheapens the experience a bit.  Kind of like, “Hey kids!  Come buy our brand new Madden game!  I know it might seem strange for us to put Favre on the cover, but believe it or not at one point Favre had his mind made up!  Nothing else has really changed from last year’s version, but it’s NEW and just $60.00 so buy it TODAY!”

Why couldn’t they just have put Tom Brady on the cover? (Insert Patriots/Cheating comments here).

Madden 2009 ships 8/12/08 and will be available for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii, Nintendo DS, PSP, and PS2

Posted by stefan on 07/26 at 09:35 PM
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