Uh oh, looks like the dreaded “Madden Curse” may have struck again!

Pittsburgh Steelers star safety Troy Polamalu, dueling Madden NFL 10 cover athlete with Arizona Cardinals stud receiver Larry Fitzgerald, went down with a knee injury during the Steelers’ 13-10 overtime win against the Tennessee Titans in Thursday night’s NFL season opener.

There is no confirmation yet as to what the injury is, but current reports based on comments from Steelers coach Mike Tomlin after the game speculate it is a MCL sprain that will keep Polamalu sidelined for 3-6 weeks. That’s the best case scenario of course. Tests are still being done and the injury could be worse. An ACL injury could put his entire season in jeopardy and potentially derail the Steelers’ campaign to repeat as Super Bowl champs.

Before getting injured, Polamalu was a man on fire, knocking Titans players around left and right — beautiful mane flowing in the process as usual — and making a spectacular one-handed interception that’ll surely go down as one of the highlights of the entire NFL season this year (he got penalized a few times too, but except for the blatant facemask I thought the other penalties were pretty bogus).

Polamalu could very well come back in a few weeks and pick up right where he left off, or he could be another cursed Madden cover star. I’m generally not a superstitious guy, but if I were Larry Fitzgerald I’d be feeling a bit nervous right about now…