THE ORIGIN OF A JINX

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Vince Young didn't respect the jinx. He will now.

I love this time of year. We're now just seven days from the release of EA's latest Madden NFL football game. But I don't own a single game console, and haven't picked up a controller not shaped like a guitar in years. So why the hell would I care? I care because it means writers all around the country will be talking about the Madden Jinx.

And I'm the one who made it up.

The Madden Jinx was the very first piece I pitched to The Magazine back in 2002, the year Marshall Faulk fronted the box. I owe a lot to that made-up jinx. If it's not responsible for landing me my job at The Mag, it was at least the piece that made a few editors say, "Hey, that Florida cheerleader chick gets us."

I needed a killer pitch (read: cash) and it was right around the date the '02 version of the game was set to release. At the time, my friends seemed to have little else to talk about, and part of their excitement centered around who would be featured on the cover. That got me thinking about what the past cover guys had in common, and, based on my findings, if I could predict something about the next cover boy.

I figured, if there's an SI cover curse, couldn't there be a Madden equivalent?

It took little research to find misfortune had indeed struck the game's previous front men, Eddie George and Daunte Culpepper, soon after they appeared on the box. Of course, I had the law of averages—and sky-high NFL injury rates—on my side. Besides, if Fantasy Football has taught us anything, it's that players rarely duplicate the type of MVP-caliber seasons that earn them a spot on the covers of magazines and videogames. But that was beside the point.

Clearly, these men had been felled by the box.

Until now, I haven't told many people I was the one who invented this whole thing. Earlier this year I brought it up to Mag editor-in-chief Gary Belsky and his response was somewhat less than a ringing endorsement:

"What?! We must take credit for this immediately if it's true. Which it probably isn't."

My boss, the guy who approved the pitch in the first place, didn't believe it was my creation. How could I possibly think anyone else would?

I know I made it up, and usually don't mind when people roll their eyes in disbelief when I tell them about it. But to prove Gary wrong, I scoured Nexis for any sign of The Jinx before the date my story ran. Nothing. My legacy was safe.

Then, a couple months ago, I heard Brett Favre would be gracing the cover this year, and began to worry The Jinx may come crashing to an end. How could an unfortunate football fate befall a retiree? If only Favre understood that my reputation was on the line, perhaps he would reconsider his hasty decision.

Oh, wait.

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