Madden 25 Cover Athlete Christian McCaffrey Injured, Will Miss 4 Games

Earlier this year, San Francisco 49ers running back–and last year’s Offensive Player of the Year–Christian McCaffrey was named the cover athlete for Madden NFL 25. But unfortunately, McCaffrey has been placed on injured reserve with calf soreness and Achilles tendinitis. As part of the IR designation, McCaffrey will miss at least the first four games of the season.

Via ESPN, McCaffrey had a history of injuries when he was a member of the Carolina Panthers in 2020 and 2021. For those two seasons, McCaffrey played in 10 games total. Since arriving in San Francisco, McCaffrey has played in 32 out of the 49ers’ 33 games. But given McCaffrey’s recent appearance on Madden NFL 25’s cover, his injury has reinvigorated talk about the so-called Madden curse.

The late John Madden was primarily featured on the cover of the video games that shared his name prior to 1998. Once NFL players were featured on the cover, it gave rise to theory that there was some sort of Madden curse that would doom the cover athletes to either an injury or a subpar season. CBS Sports recently ran an analysis of the Madden curse by looking back at what happened to the last 24 athletes who appeared on the cover. 14 players either suffered an injury or had diminished playing skills afterwards.

Of course, the most likely explanation for the Madden curse is that football is a brutally physical game that wears down even the strongest bodies. Only a handful of players make it though their careers without missing games to injuries. But that probably won’t stop the Madden curse conspiracy theorists from pointing to McCaffrey as the latest victim.