With the Red Sox having broken their curse in 2004, the Madden Curse might be the most notable curse left in sports. The theory goes that any player who appears on the cover of EA's Madden video game will soon suffer a debilitating injury and/or suddenly stop being good at football. There are numerous instances to be cited, and a lot of people otherwise rational people believe in it.

If you're one of them, you might want to stay away from Brett Favre for about a year or so. He no longer has a football career that can be damaged, so who knows how the Madden gods are going to choose to apply their wrath.

Maybe Favre goes hunting and accidentally shoots the family dog. Maybe the love triangle between Favre, John Madden, and Peter King finally blows up, leaving all three men with nothing but a broken heart and a mirror in which to tearfully sing I Will Survive.

Maybe Aaron Rogers has the greatest season any quarterback has ever had, and leads the Packers to a 19-0 season and a Super Bowl victory, completely replacing Favre in the hearts and minds of the Green Bay faithful.

Okay, that last one's pretty unlikely.

But I'm not one of the people who subscribes to the theory of the Madden Curse. There are no curses in sports. The Red Sox lost to the Yankees all those years because the Yankees were better, and because they were afraid. The Cubs' troubles have nothing to do with a goat. Curses are excuses.

Eddie George fell off because the Titans worked him like a rented mule the year before. Daunte Culpepper fell off because his success was an illusion in the first place. Michael Vick got hurt because he was always injury-prone, thanks in part to his run-first approach to quarterbacking. Marshall Faulk had to get old sometime. Donovan McNabb didn't suffer from the Madden Curse as much as he suffered from the Having Terrell Owens As A Teammate Curse. And Shaun Alexander, like Marshall Faulk, also had to get old sometime.

The other two Madden cover boys, Ray Lewis and Vince Young, defied whatever "curse" exists. Ray Lewis had a 140-tackle year after being on the cover, and Vince Young's quarterback rating actually rose four points in the year he was on the cover.

It's a fun little theory, though. If Brett Favre comes down with Lupus or something, perhaps I'll reconsider.

Related: NFL Media