The Madden Curse

This past year the Cleveland Browns running back, Peyton Hillis won the competition and is featured on the cover of the new Madden NFL 2012 video game. This is a huge honor for him as he proved himself to be one the best last season in the NFL and even beat out players such as Aaron Rodgers in the run for the cover. With being featured on the Madden cover, there is said to be a curse that comes with this accomplishment. In the past, it has been proven that after appearing on the cover, may come injuries or not a successful season. In 2009, when Brett Farve appeared on the cover, later that season he led the league in most interceptions thrown. Another athlete, Vince Young, appeared on the cover in 2008, and ended up later that season injuring his knee and sitting out for several weeks. Will this happen to the Browns top running back?

This past weekend the Browns won against the Indianapolis Colts, and were led by two touchdowns scored by Hillis. He has been off to a great start leading his team. Let's just hope that he does have a great rest of the season and breaks this Madden curse.

Ohio State's loss to Miami

This past weekend the Ohio State Buckeyes traveled down to Miami, Florida to take on the Hurricanes. This was a huge game for the Buckeyes, as most games are going to be huge this year for the Buckeyes because of what has happened over the past year to their program. Ohio State has pulled off two wins for their first two games of the season against Toledo and Akron. This game was going to be the biggest one of the season so far. Unfortunately, Ohio State did not perform like they did in the 2002 National Championship against Miami and lost the game this weekend. The only points that the Buckeyes scored were two field goals. The final score was 24-6. Everyone is now wondering how they will perform for the rest of the season with still having some of their best players suspended for a few more games. Are the buckeyes going to come back and continue with a winning season? Or will this be the season for them to regroup and come back even stronger next year?

Serena's Outburst

During the women's US Open championship match, Serena Williams had a tough match and ended up losing to Samantha Stosur. This match was very intense and at times Serena got very into it and started yelling and verbally abusing the official. This action resulted in a $2,000 fine from the US Open. There are no other major consequences with her action besides this fine. Williams, the runner up, still walked away with $1.4 million from this tournament.  I think to people who make that much money, $2,000 is nothing to them and for them to realize what they actually did was wrong, the price should be higher than that. This could lead to other outbursts of her doing the same exact thing. Should the fine be higher than $2,000? Or is that amount equal to her actions?

Playoffs way off in the distance

The Cleveland Indians are a team that surprised many people this season by starting off with one of the best records in the league. They have been on and off the rest of the season, and lost the lead of the best record. The most recent series for the Indians was against the Detroit Tigers in Cleveland. This was a must win series for the Tribe. With many of the starters out because of injury, everyone knew this was going to be a tough series and they needed to win at least two out of the three games to stay in the run for playoffs. Well, Detroit ended up winning all three games and sweeping Cleveland. Seeing this is not something that Cleveland fans wanted to see as their hopes for a the team making it to the playoffs are quickly getting farther and farther away. The number of games that the Tigers are leading by continues to grow. With the end of the season being less than a month away, will the playoff dreams for the Indians continue to diminish away or will this team step up and try to make a comeback?

I personally believe that all of these players have the hope and determination to continue playing strong for the rest of the season. There are many huge assets that will be coming back to the team from injury, but is that going to be enough? The last series of the season for Cleveland is in Detroit.This could be one of the most important series for the Tribe in a long time. Will the Tigers keep their lead and win the AL Central or will there be a miracle and a team will comeback from behind and prove they deserve to be in the playoff run?

Introduction

Hi Everyone,
My name is Shannon Yaugher and I am currently a sophomore at Slippery Rock University. I am majoring in Sport Management. My hometown is Cleveland, Ohio and I graduated from Holy Name High School. I am a huge Cleveland Sports fan and I support all teams, even if they aren't the greatest. My career interest area is marketing, community relations, and sales. I hope to work within a minor league organization, preferably arena football or minor league baseball.