The Madden Curse is a long-standing urban legend in the NFL community, suggesting that the player chosen for the cover of EA Sports' Madden NFL video game is destined for a season of bad luck, injury, or poor performance. The superstition gained massive traction in the late 1990s and early 2000s after stars like Garrison Hearst, Marshall Faulk, and Michael Vick suffered significant setbacks shortly after appearing on the cover. While some players like Patrick Mahomes have recently challenged the hex, the meme remains a staple of sports culture, used by fans to express fear for their team's stars or to mock opponents. On social media, the template is often applied metaphorically to anything that appears 'too good to be true' just before an inevitable downfall.