The Chicago Bears have finally done it. For the first time in franchise history, one of their players has graced the cover of Madden!

This week, EA announced that Bears quarterback Caleb Williams (also known as Iceman?) will be the Madden 27 cover athlete.

This came as a bit of surprise, but I don’t hate it. I thought Matthew Stafford, Jaxon Smith-Njigba or Myles Garrett would’ve ended up on the cover, but Williams is one of the hottest young athletes in the league, and he’s helped revive one of the NFL’s biggest franchises.

Being named the cover athlete of Madden is a huge honor, but it’s not one that everyone wants. Even if you’re not a superstitious person, you can’t deny that it’s a bit weird just how often the cover athlete goes on to have a disappointing season the following year.

The Madden curse is real, so the big question is, will Caleb Williams be the next victim of the Madden curse?

What is the Madden Curse?

The Madden curse is exactly what it sounds like. If you end up on the cover of a Madden game, you typically don’t play all that well the following season. It sounds superstitious, but there’s evidence to back it up.

The Madden curse began with Madden 99, the first time a player was on the cover of the game instead of legendary coach, John Madden. Former Tampa Bay running back Garrison Hearst was coming off a 1,500-yard season, and helped lead Tampa to the NFC Divisional Round in 1999, but he ended up breaking his fibula on the first play from scrimmage and missed the next two seasons due to complications with the injury.

The very next year, Barry Sanders was put on the cover alongside John Madden, and while Sanders didn’t have a bad season, he actually ended up unexpectedly retiring before the season came out. Madden did end up replacing him last minute, but that wasn’t a great start for players on the Madden cover.

Two years later, in 2002, Dante Culpepper was named the Madden cover athlete. He actually played pretty well that season, but he ended up suffering a season-ending knee injury later in the year.

In 2003 and 2004, Marshall Faulk and Michael Vick both suffered lower body injury that caused them to miss a handful of games each. Vick actually missed 11 games, and Faulk would never rush for over 1,000 yards again after his appearance on the cover.

In five of the game’s first six years with players on the cover, the cover athlete either suffered an injury or retired unexpectedly before the season began. Not a great start…

How Have Recent Cover Athletes Fared?

There were plenty of cover athletes who suffered the same fate in the early 2000s, but let’s take a look at how some of the more recent cover athletes have fared.

Saquon Barkley, who was coming off a 2,000-yard rushing season, was the Madden 26 cover athlete. he didn’t have a bad season, finishing with over 1,400 yards from scrimmage, but he had over 700 fewer yards, six fewer touchdowns and saw his average drop from 5.8 yards per carry to 4.1.

Christian McCaffrey was named the Madden 25 cover athlete following a 2,000-yard, 21-touchdown season, but ended up playing just four games in 2024 due to multiple injuries that landed him on injured reserve twice.

Madden 24 saw Josh Allen grace the cover, and he’s one of the few players that didn’t really fall victim to the Madden curse. He threw for 4,306 yards and 29 touchdowns, but he also did toss a career-high 18 interceptions that year, which is more than he’s totaled in the two seasons since.

John Madden was on the cover of Madden 23, but in 2021, we got joint cover athletes, with Tom Brady and Patrick Mahomes both featured on the Madden 22 cover, just one year after the two faced off in the Super Bowl. Both guys played all 17 games and posted some pretty good stats, but Mahomes and the Kansas City Chiefs fell in the AFC Divisional Round as Brady and the Tampa Bay Buccaneers lost in the NFC Divisional Round. Not bad seasons, per say, but for the two Super Bowl favorites entering the year, it’s a pretty disappointing end.

Coming off his 2019 MVP campaign, Lamar Jackson was named the Madden 21 cover athlete, and while he didn’t play at the same MVP level, he was still one of the best quarterbacks in the league, totaling over 3,700 yards and 33 touchdowns with nine interceptions.

Six players have been on the cover of Madden since 2020, and only two of them weren’t really effected by the Madden curse. And if you want to count Josh Allen throwing the most interceptions of his career and winning the fewest games of his career since his rookie season, then you could say Lamar Jackson was the only one not hit with the Madden curse.

I told you guys, it’s a real thing. So if I were a Bears fan, I’d be a bit concerned about the upcoming season.

Caleb Williams 2026 Projection

Caleb Williams has played some really good football through the first two years of his career. As a rookie, he wasn’t as impressive as many thought he would be, but he still threw for 3,541 yards and 20 touchdowns while adding nearly 500 yards as a runner. But in 2025, with Ben Johnson taking over as head coach, Williams made huge strides, totaling over 4,300 yards of offense and 30 touchdowns with seven interceptions. He was 58 yards away from becoming the first Bears quarterback to throw for 4,000 yards in a single season.

Now, heading into year three and coming off the heels of an NFC Divisional Round berth, expectations for Caleb Williams and the Bears are sky high. But just how high are they? Let’s see what Vegas thinks.

FanDuel currently has Williams’ over/under for passing yards at 3,575.5, and his over/under for touchdowns at 25.5. Those seem a bit low, but FanDuel does expect Williams to lead the Bears back to the playoffs. Their over/under for wins is set at 9.5, and they’re +260 to win the NFC North for the second consecutive season.

I expect Williams and the Bears to cash the over on all of these projections, but given the history of the Madden curse, I don’t particularly feel great about it.

It seems silly to put so much stock into such a random thing, but it really does feel like at least 75 percent of cover athletes either get injured or regress the year they’re on the Madden cover.