We all know about the Madden curse, which says players who win the Madden cover vote are likely to experience misfortune in the following season.
It turns out there could be a similar curse for quarterbacks who win the AP MVP award and then play in a Super Bowl. This tandem of achievements has occurred on 18 occasions and the teams that the quarterbacks play for have gone 6-12 in those contests.
In many cases, these elite signal-callers had subpar or worse performances that were major contributing factors to the losses. The group includes Earl Morrall, Joe Theismann, Dan Marino, Boomer Esiason, Rich Gannon and Peyton Manning.
Considering Cam Newton has the inside track to win this season's MVP award, it seems appropriate to ask if this curse will have a negative impact on him as well.
After looking at the metrics and game tapes, it turns out that this concern is well-founded for a variety of reasons.