BusinessWeek: Best Of The Web

A special tech report includes everything from the best bloggers, web’s marketing bonanza, must bookmark sites and more.

Inside The Wii Nunchuk

Someone got their hands on a Wii Nunchuk and pulled it apart resulting in some interesting pictures.

The ScobleShow Launch

“So, what’s the ScobleShow?It’s a videoblog. This week it’ll be updated only once (today). Starting in about another week it’ll see a new post or two every day (five to 10 posts a week).”

Robert Scoble is a tech geek blogger and all around interesting guy.

The Madden Curse (Brief History)

It’s rumored that if you grace the cover of the Madden NFL football game then the next season means disaster for you. Here’s a little brief history of the curse.

“2000: The 2000 edition of Madden NFL was a gentle easing-in to the curse. This was the last edition of the game to feature a photograph of John Madden on the front of the box (as all previous editions had done), but it also included a background picture of the Detroit Lions’ star running back (and future NFL Hall of Famer) Barry Sanders. As events turned out, Sanders didn’t play a single down during the 1999-2000 season (or ever again), shocking the Lions by abruptly announcing his retirement and ending his ten-year career just before the start of training camp that summer.

Since Barry Sanders quit well before the start of the 1999 regular season, EA Sports had enough time to substitute a different graphic on the packaging of later shipments of Madden NFL 2000. The newer covers replaced the Madden/Sanders combination with a picture of Green Bay Packers running back Dorsey Levens, who spearheaded a Packers team that had just played in three straight NFC Championship Games and back-to-back Super Bowls. Although Levens performed reasonably well in 1999, he was bothered by a bad knee that he had re-injured the previous year, and Green Bay finished out of the playoff picture with a so-so 8-8 record. Levens was used only in a reserve role after that, and the Packers released him at the end of the 2001 season.

2001: The 2001 cover of Madden NFL featured Tennessee Titans running back Eddie George, who the previous year had led his team to the Super Bowl (where they came up just short against the St. Louis Rams). Although George enjoyed his best season ever (in terms of yards gained rushing and touchdowns scored) in 2000, he bobbled a pass (that was subsequently intercepted and returned for a touchdown) in the Titans’ season-ending Divisional Playoff loss to the Baltimore Ravens, and the following season, hampered by injuries, he saw his rushing average sink to an all-time low.

2002: The 2002 cover of Madden NFL featured Minnesota Vikings quarterback Daunte Culpepper, who the previous year had made an impressive NFL debut in taking his team to the NFC Championship Game (which they lost to the New York Giants). In 2001, however, the Vikings struggled to a disappointing 4-7 record before Culpepper suffered a knee injury and missed the last five games of the year (while Minnesota finished the season a dismal 5-11).

2003: The 2003 cover of Madden NFL featured St. Louis Rams running back Marshall Faulk, whose rushing and receiving prowess had led his team to the Super Bowl twice in the previous three years. But Faulk was plagued by an injured ankle during the 2002 season, his yards gained rushing total dropped under the 1,000 mark (after four straight seasons of 1300+ yards), and the Rams missed the playoffs with a disappointing 7-9 record.

2004: The 2004 cover of Madden NFL featured Atlanta Falcons quarterback Michael Vick, who in 2002 (his first season as a starter) took a team with a dismal 16-32 record over the previous three years and led them to a respectable 9-6-1 finish and a spot in the NFL playoffs as a Wild Card entry. In 2003, though, Vick suffered a fractured right fibula in a pre-season game one day after Madden NFL 2004 hit store shelves; he played in only five games that year as the Falcons sank to a lowly 5-11 record.

2005: The 2005 cover of Madden NFL featured Baltimore Ravens linebacker Ray Lewis, who had recorded a career-high six interceptions in 2003 as his team reached the post-season for the third time in four years. But in 2004, Lewis failed (for the only time in his NFL career) to record even a single interception and sat out the final game of the season with an injury as the Ravens just missed qualifying for the playoffs at 9-7, and in 2005 he suffered a torn right hamstring in Baltimore’s sixth game and missed the rest of the season as the Ravens dropped to 6-10.

2006: The 2006 cover of Madden NFL featured Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Donovan McNabb, under whom the Eagles had amassed a superb 59-21 regular season record and made five straight playoff appearances in the previous five years, the last of which culminated in an NFC Championship and a Super Bowl match-up against the New England Patriots (which Philadelphia lost by three points). After he was selected for the 2006 Madden NFL cover, McNabb flouted the curse by saying that the injuries associated with it “might be a trend, but I don’t believe in the curse at all.” True to form, McNabb suffered a sports hernia in the first game of the 2005 season. He played on for another eight games despite the painful injury, but after being re-injured in a contest against the Dallas Cowboys, he finally opted for surgery and missed the final seven games of the season as the Eagles finished last in the NFC East.

2007: The 2007 cover of Madden NFL featured the Seattle Seahawks’ star running back Shaun Alexander, whose 5.1 yards per carry rushing average in 2005 spurred the Seahawks to their best season ever and their first Super Bowl appearance. Three weeks into the 2006 season, Alexander broke his left foot in a game against the New York Giants.”

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