The ridiculous article of the day goes to…

This guy, Keith Claverie of the Louisiana State University paper. In his article he touches upon the topic of race as it pertains to the Madden cover. He astutely points out that no white player has ever been the cover athlete for the Madden franchise. I wonder how long it took him to find that out on Wikipedia.

The article takes an unexpected turn when he starts to infer what that means and goes as far as to use the popular belief in the “cover curse” as a motive behind who EA chooses. Below are some excerpts.

• One would believe this means Electronic Arts, the game’s developer, may have something against the white man, but this issue goes a little bit deeper.
• It is no secret the only player ever not to be affected by the curse is former Titans running back Eddie George. George had career highs in yards and touchdowns the year he made the cover and did not miss one game. And it is also no secret that George is the least dark of all the Madden cover athletes. Hmmm, coincidence? Probably so.
• But what is EA’s real motivation here? Are they purposely setting-up young, black players for sub-par, injury-riddled seasons? Of course I will not go as far to accuse Electronic Arts of being racists. Did I do that yet? Nonetheless, the facts are interesting.

Really I don’t even know how to react to this, it has to be one of the flat out most ignorant opinion pieces I’ve ever read. It would be bad enough to suggest that EA was selecting the cover athlete based on skin color for any reason, but then to imply that they are choosing black players with the hopes of the cover curse afflicting them? Give me a break.