Jinx? Sports Illustrated Has Rob Gronkowski on This Week’s Regional Cover

Will the SI cover jinx strike Rob Gronkowski this week? Getty Images

By Jack Andrade

January 6, 2015

1 minute to read

If you live in New England, your copy of this week’s Sports Illustrated will have Rob Gronkowski on the cover. That may or may not be a bad sign for the hometown football team.

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The “SI cover jinx’’ ranks right up there with the “Madden curse’’ in superstitious sports lore. Countless teams have been featured on the cover, only to lose (often by a large margin) the next game. Athletes have flopped immediately following their cover shot, although Michael Jordan made 49 covers and he turned out okay.

One Patriot has already gotten the SI cover jinx this season. Jonas Gray ran for 201 yards and 4 touchdowns against the Colts on November 16th and was on the cover the following week. Gray didn’t play at all the following week after being late to practice on Friday and being sent home.

So will Gronk get the jinx? Technically he is only on a regional cover, with the Oregon Ducks football team saddled with the burden of the national cover and theoretically higher odds of contracting the jinx.

There’s always a chance that Gronk could just overcome the jinx. After all, he did break the “Bieber Curse’’ earlier this season. People write erotic fiction about him. If anyone can do it, it’s Gronk.

If you’re a betting man (or woman), Oregon is the team you want to avoid for cover jinx purposes. But if you’re a Patriots fan, maybe your personal copy of SI is cause to be just a little bit more uncertain about this Saturday.