Well, my Super Bowl "simulation" using the 1987 DOS football game couldn't have been more off, but I wasn't the only one whose prediction was off. The dreaded "Madden Curse" tripped over its own feet and landed face down on the grass: "What curse?

The Madden Curse is the superstition that every football player whose picture appears on the Madden NFL box will suffer some injury, bad luck, or poor performance that year and will never win a Super Bowl. The reason a player is selected for the Madden Box is because he had a great season the year before, and it is unlikely that he will have an even better season the year he is selected for the Madden Box.

But, to get a little technical, no player featured in the Madden box has ever won the Super Bowl that year. One exception of sorts: New England Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski appeared in the box in 2017, but was plagued by hamstring and back injuries and played only eight games the season.

Does it count? It doesn't matter now, because the curse is officially over:

There are a number of notable injuries to players appearing in the Madden box that led to the idea of the curse. Michael Vick appeared in the box in 2004, but missed the first 11 games due to a pre-season fibula injury. Donovan McNabb suffered a groin injury in Madden's year and was unable to finish week 9; Dante Culpepper in 2002 suffered a knee injury that prematurely ended an already lackluster season.

Even Mahomes seemed destined to suffer from the Madden curse for some time. He suffered a dislocated knee in week 7 of the season, and even after a quick recovery, he did not look particularly hot at last night's Super Bowl.

But the Chiefs won, so we can assume that the Madden curse has finally been lifted. Or we can consider it a silly superstition. Or we could think that the fact that Madden finally got PC support in 2019 is why the curse was broken just one year later: the PC game broke the Madden curse once and for all (with some help from Mahomes and the Chiefs). Thank you, PC Games.