Browns running back Peyton Hillis will be on the cover of the new Madden game. But Hillis doesn’t believe that the honor amounts to a curse.
“I don’t believe in curses,” Hillis told Joe Brescia of the New York Times. “I could get hurt next year, but I don’t believe it has anything to do with the curse. I’m a Christian man and I don’t believe anything could be put in front of me that God can’t take away. I would love to prove everyone wrong and have an exceptional year and not get hurt.”
But that’s precisely how a curse can become something tangible. This year, Hillis will be thinking about “prov[ing] everyone wrong,” by not getting hurt. And plenty of guys get hurt when they specifically are trying not to get hurt.
So even though there’s no such thing as a Madden curse, Hillis’ desire to prove that there is no Madden curse could, in a roundabout way, become a Madden curse.