It was just announced that the NFL’s Offensive Player of the Year, Saquon Barkley, will be the Madden 26 cover athlete. Coming off a career year and his first with Philadelphia, he rightfully deserves the honor, and his iconic reverse hurdle during the Eagles’ Week 9 matchup against the Jacksonville Jaguars also becomes the highlighted cover image. Barkley had arguably one of the best seasons for a running back, breaking the full-season rushing record once held by Terrell Davis. Barkley is the seventh running back to be chosen for the cover, after Christian McCaffrey, who had the honor of cover athlete last year, Barry Sanders, Peyton Hillis, Shaun Alexander, Marshall Faulk, and Eddie George, who was just the second athlete with the honor of being the cover athlete once the accolade was established in 2000. Saquon is also just the second Eagles player to become the cover athlete for Madden, with former Eagles quarterback and franchise player Donovan McNabb getting the nod to be the face of Madden 06. Twenty editions of the game later, and the Eagles are considered a threat not just in the NFC East but all of the NFL.

.@Saquon hurdled his way onto the cover of #Madden26

Coming 8.14.25. Pre-Order Today.

🔗: https://t.co/zm14BbUaJf pic.twitter.com/l1QYWN0b7h

— Madden NFL 26 (@EAMaddenNFL) June 2, 2025

While Barkley, Eagles, and Madden fans are excited for one of the most iconic plays of the modern game to take the limelight this year, some more superstitious fans have already started to doubt that Barkley’s trajectory will continue upwards. Back in the early 2000s, there was a rumor of the “Madden Curse,” in which coming off of their cover athlete season, the Madden stars in question would then endure career worst seasons, most of them not able to reachieve the greatness that once gave them the recognition to become the cover athlete. While the idea of the Madden Curse started to go away towards the middle of the 2010s, some were trying to reignite the curse once the 2025 cover athlete, Christian McCaffrey, only played four games in the 2024 season after recovering from a right knee injury sustained towards the end of the season before. Many shouldn’t think too much about the Madden Curse as Saquon ended his record-setting season completely healthy; however, there is one trend, or “curse” as some are beginning to call it, that people should be wary of in addition to this football folklore.

While there were plenty of records that Barkley broke last season that deserved praise, one that might have gone under the radar was that Barkley carried the ball more times last season (436, including the playoffs) than any running back this century, with one exception: DeMarco Murray, who matched Barkley at 436 back in 2014. Murray had a mirroring experience to Saquon around this time when he put up phenomenal numbers for the Eagles’ rival, the Dallas Cowboys, rushing for 1,845 yards and 13 touchdowns on 392 carries in the regular season to go along with 57 receptions and 416 receiving yards. Murray signed with the Eagles the following season, and his efficiency and overall production started to tank. He delivered a career-worst 3.6 yards per carry en route to a mere 702 rushing yards and six touchdowns with 44 catches for 332 yards. Murray went from the second-best in the NFL in 2014 to the middle of the pack at fifteenth in 2015. Granted, Murray split carries with Ryan Mathews and Darren Sproles that season, but thus began discussions of “The Curse of 400 Carries.”

Murray was the last running back to have this epic fall from grace to the same extreme that many are projecting Barkley to have; however, the NFL has undergone significant changes in the decade since Murray was in the NFL. The last running back to approach 400 carries in a season was then Titan, now Raven, Derrick Henry. In 2020, Henry carried the ball 397 times for the Titans, tallying 2,027 yards and 17 touchdowns, finishing as the second-best running back in the league. The next season? Henry played just eight games and finished as the 18th-best RB in the league. Of course, he recovered essentially immediately in 2022, and it’s also worth mentioning that entering that 2021 season, Henry had tallied 1,407 touches in his NFL career, both in the regular season and playoffs, and entering the 2025 season, Barkley will have piled up nearly 600 more (1,996).

Phenomenal behind-the-scenes look at the new Madden cover featuring Saquon Barkley.

Congratulations to a great football player and even better person! Nobody more deserving! @saquon 🫡 pic.twitter.com/67ftqltWud

— Jordan Schultz (@Schultz_Report) June 2, 2025

Hopefully, Barkley will prove all the naysayers wrong and continue to set new franchise records as his time with the Eagles has been extended. It’s been nice to see an Eagles player celebrated after a record-setting 2024 campaign. We saw Barkley rush for 2,005 yards with 13 touchdowns and witnessed him break the NFL’s single-season rushing record, including the playoffs, with 2,504 yards. 2025 will prove to be a big year for Barkley and his Eagles franchise, with all eyes on them as they try to solidify their status as a legitimate franchise in this era of the game.