The Bucs have never had a player famous or good enough to grace the cover of EA Sports’ “Madden” video game franchise.
The game has been around since 1988, and the Bucs had the same number of cover athletes as the Lions do Super Bowls (sorry Lions fans, caught a stray there).
No more. Tom Brady, who graced the cover of the famous football game in the 2018 edition of the game, will share the cover with his counterpart from this past year’s Super Bowl, Patrick Mahomes, in what is being called the “Greatest Cover of All Time.”
All BS marketing schemes aside, the fact that the Bucs are now well-known enough to get one of their own on the cover of this very famous game is a feat in itself, regardless of whether the player has to share the cover with another incredibly talented and popular individual.
The well-known “Madden Curse” has been an issue, as in the past many players who ended up on the covers suffered subpar or injury-plagued seasons the following year, but it seems as if Mahomes was the guy to break that curse, as the season following his taking the cover of “Madden 19,” the Chiefs won the Super Bowl and he himself won Super Bowl MVP.
Another noteworthy fun fact coming out of this: The Bucs have five of the past seven cover athletes on their roster (Tom Brady twice, Rob Gronkowski while he was in New England in ‘17, and Antonio Brown while he was on the Steelers in ‘19).
It’s becoming quite fashionable to be a Bucs fan.
The game hits stands on Aug. 20, in between the Bucs' first two preseason exhibitions against the Bengals and Titans.
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This article appears in Jun 24-30, 2021.