Friday, February 6, 2015

Uncanny Super Bowl 49 Predictions by Madden NFL 15

It's been nearly a week now since Super Bowl 49 ended with the New England Patriots beating the Seattle Seahawks on a play that will go down in Super Bowl lore that will forever be known as "The Call" by those that follow the NFL. It was a play that no one foresaw coming (except for the Patriot's defensive backs) or  that could be predicted without a sneer or snicker from devout fans or pundits. What was predicted from fans, pundits and soothsayer alike ran the gamut from the obvious to the improbable nevertheless. However, no entity was more successful at predicting this year's big game than EA Sports, the makers of the extremely popular video game series Madden NFL

For the past 12 years EA Sports has been running game simulations using its Madden NFL game to predict the eventual outcome of the Super Bowl. In doing so, they have been able to tell us the winners of 9 of the last 12 Super Bowls with uncanny accuracy.

Not only did Madden NFL 15 predict that the Patriots would win, it predicted that they would come from behind in a last minute comeback to defeat the Seahawks by a score of 28-24. It also predicted that:

  • The Patriots would score first - Correct
  • Tom Brady would win MVP - Correct
  • Tom Brady would have 4 touchdown passes - Correct
  • Julian Edelman would catch the game winning touchdown - Correct

And came amazingly close to other game day stats such as:

  • Tom Brady would pass for 335 yard (he throw for 328, 7 yards shy of total)
  • It was only 3 yards and 1 catch away from perfectly calling Julian Edelman’s entire game.
  • Halftime score 17 - 14 (game was actually tied at 14)
As I mentioned above, this was the 9th time in 12 years that the Madden NFL game predicted the final outcome of the Super Bowl but by far, this year's game simulation was the most detailed and amazingly accurate one of them all. 



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