How Michael Phelps Doomed Tom Brady

In this first few seconds after the hit, it was painfully obvious that the season was going to be much different than the New England Patriots had planned.

There, on the field, lie Tom Brady, the agony plain on his face as he clutched at his knee before hobbling away, never to play again this year.

It left the Pats without a QB and a whole whack of fantasy footballers scrambling to check if the rest of their roster would be able to make it through.

Almost a week later, Internet fan sites are still abuzz about Brady's season-ending knee injury.  The finger pointing began in the moments after the hit and still there is resentment towards Bernard Poller and the Kansas City Chiefs and whoever else the Patriot faithful deem it necessary to blame for this gut-wrenching, kick-to-the-groin blow to what was supposed to be another glorious Patriots season.

I submit to the Pats faithful, however, that blame does not lie with Pollard, with the Chiefs or with anyone even remotely associated with football.

The finger of blame is pointed squarely at Michael Phelps.

It is Aquaman, the flying fish, the olympian's Olympian who should be shouldering the blame for Brady's downfall, the man with the flipper feet, gangly arms and eight gold medals which he so proudly displayed on the cover of the August 25th edition of Sports Illustrated.

And therein lies the knee-ointment rub!

In the days leading up to the Beijing Olympics and the two weeks in which the eyes of the world were focused on China, Phelps graced the cover of SI three times.  He finished the games with the eight gold medals everyone expected him to.  

But in gracing the cover of SI three times in four weeks and still coming out of China tops of the swimming world, he defied the Sports Illustrated Cover Jinx.

The jink is well documented: 

The Sports Illustrated Jinx is a myth that states that individuals or teams who appear on the cover of the Sports Illustrated magazine will experience bad luck at varying lengths into the future.

While the list of "examples" of the jinx may be extensive, an individual record 49 cover appearances by Michael Jordan did not hinder his success. Similarly,  Vince Young also overcame the Sport Illustrated jinx by appearing on the cover of Sports Illustrated twice during Texas' National Championship season.

What Wikipedia fails to mention, though, is that Jordan did suffer.  I point to his gambling woes, not to mention his failed attempt at cracking the roster of the Chicago White Sox.  Jinx, indeed!

And what about Vince Young?  While the eyes of the football world cried salty tears of despair over the fall of Tom Brady, scant few noticed that Young went to pot over the weekend as well.

Booed by hometown fans after a lackluster performance despite a Titans win over Jacksonville last weekend, Young disappeared for a spell which prompted a worried phone call to police in Nashville who were asked to track down Young over fears of his mental state and emotional well-being. He was fine, by the way, he was playing video games at a friends house or something just as mundane.

OK, in the grand scheme of things, the SI jinx on Vince Young is the equivalent of the Great Pumpkin curse that befalls Linus every Halloween.  Still, you get the point.

Alas, no such trouble hindered Phelps as he swam to Olympic glory and the top celebrity sports endorsement food chain. He was on the cover three times and managed to avoid the jinx.

In my experience, you tempt fate that much, you're bound to get served at some point.  It may still happen with Phelps but, in the meantime, Brady is out for the season.

By now, you're probably asking, what the hell are you talking about?

Here's the kicker: the very week after Phelps appeared on SI with his shiny smile and gold medals, on the cover of the very next issue was a photograph of a smiling Tom Brady. 

See? 

Phelps spit in the eye of the SI curse and BAM! it took out Tom Brady, the next athlete to grace the cover of the magazine.  Coincidence?  I think not!

Phelps may have broken the jinx but he certainly did not dispel it.  Angry and listless, it roamed the sporting world alone until it spotted Tom Brady at the newsstand the following week.  It managed to regroup, bide its time, wait for the preseason to end then down goes Brady, dashing the hopes of thousands, maybe even millions, and sating its desire to wreak havoc on the sporting realm.

And so, the roles are reversed.  It's no longer Phelps in deep water, it's the Patriots.  Now, it's time to see if the team will sink like a stone or swim to glory.