EA’s Madden Simulation Predicts Exact Super Bowl Score

by
February 2, 2015

EA has been using its Madden franchise to simulate Super Bowls for fun and profit for some time now. So when the time came to plug in 2015’s Super Bowl contenders and let the ones and zeros predict the future, EA did so again. The results, as people say, will shock you.

According to Yahoo! Tech, the simulator picked the final score exactly right. This would be an impressive feat in and of itself, but it gets way deeper. I’ll let Yahoo! explain it. The details are far too bone-chilling for me to type:

… it even foresaw Tom Brady’s fourth-quarter game-winning pass to Julian Edelman.

And that was just the tip of the prognostication iceberg.

Madden predicted New England would score first in the game. It predicted Tom Brady would take home the MVP trophy. It was 27 yards off Brady’s total passing yardage (355 vs. 328) and got his total touchdowns (4). It was only 3 yards and 1 catch away from perfectly calling Julian Edelman’s entire game.

I would like to say — because I know they’re reading this — that I, for one, welcome the coming of our sentient-robot overlords. I’m sure if we behave the way we are instructed, that no harm will come to us or our families. All hail Lord XBOX! So say we all!

You Aren't a FanGraphs Member
It looks like you aren't yet a FanGraphs Member (or aren't logged in). We aren't mad, just disappointed.
We get it. You want to read this article. But before we let you get back to it, we'd like to point out a few of the good reasons why you should become a Member.
1. Ad Free viewing! We won't bug you with this ad, or any other.
2. Unlimited articles! Non-Members only get to read 10 free articles a month. Members never get cut off.
3. Dark mode and Classic mode!
4. Custom player page dashboards! Choose the player cards you want, in the order you want them.
5. One-click data exports! Export our projections and leaderboards for your personal projects.
6. Remove the photos on the home page! (Honestly, this doesn't sound so great to us, but some people wanted it, and we like to give our Members what they want.)
7. Even more Steamer projections! We have handedness, percentile, and context neutral projections available for Members only.
8. Get FanGraphs Walk-Off, a customized year end review! Find out exactly how you used FanGraphs this year, and how that compares to other Members. Don't be a victim of FOMO.
9. A weekly mailbag column, exclusively for Members.
10. Help support FanGraphs and our entire staff! Our Members provide us with critical resources to improve the site and deliver new features!
We hope you'll consider a Membership today, for yourself or as a gift! And we realize this has been an awfully long sales pitch, so we've also removed all the other ads in this article. We didn't want to overdo it.
(image via YouTube)

 





 

David G. Temple is the Managing Editor of TechGraphs and a contributor to FanGraphs, NotGraphs and The Hardball Times. He hosts the award-eligible podcast Stealing Home. Dayn Perry once called him a "Bible Made of Lasers." Follow him on Twitter @davidgtemple.

7 Comments
Oldest
Newest Most Voted
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments
Bryan Cole
10 years ago

#smallsamplesize

0
Jackson Mejia
10 years ago
Reply to  Bryan Cole

Be that as it may, the fact that it predicted a game so accurately, even just once, is amazing.

0
Seth Keichline
10 years ago
Reply to  Jackson Mejia

SO SAY WE ALL!!!

0
Amused
10 years ago

Madden must be a witch!

0
Well-Beered Englishman
10 years ago
Reply to  Amused

Or an octopus!

0
Chris K
10 years ago
Reply to  Well-Beered Englishman

Also Octopus can be wrong.

0
Mac
10 years ago

It’s more likely to predict one SB very closely than to be off consistently every single time. Welcome to randomness.

0