Madden Simulation Predicts Thrilling Patriots Victory In High Scoring Super Bowl
Despite all the distractions over pigskin bladders this past week, the New England Patriots will be prepared for the staunch defense of the Seattle Seahawks and win Super Bowl XLIX, with quarterback Tom Brady earning the MVP award. So says Madden NFL 15 in an annual simulation that Electronic Arts has been doing for over a decade.
It's worth bringing up that the annual Madden simulations have put together a record of 8-3 up to this point. Impressive, though not without some embarrassing misses, like predicting a Denver Broncos victory over the Seahawks last year to the tune of 31-28. Instead, things went bad for Manning and company from the very first snap, and it was the Seahawks that emerged victorious with a final score of 43-8.
Madden's other two miscues came in Super Bowl XLV and XLII, with the former predicting the Steelers over the Packers at 24-20 instead of the actual outcome of the Packers beating the Steelers 31-25, and the latter incorrectly picking the Patriots to beat the Giants 38-30 as opposed to the Giants winning 17-14.
Hey, you can't win 'em all, and an 8-3 record is pretty impressive for a video game simulation. As for Super Bowl XLIX, Madden predicts a relatively high scoring affair, with the Patriots turning a 14-17 halftime deficit into a 28-24 victory courtesy of a game winning drive.
Normally that wouldn't be considered a particularly high scoring affair, but in this case, the Seahawks own what some consider the best defense in NFL history. And the Patriots? They're not too shabby on the defensive end, either. Nevertheless, Madden NFL 15 sees Brady racking up 335 yards on offense and four touchdowns.
The simulation was run on an Xbox One with updated rosters. And what of Bing, which urged Microsoft's Cortana virtual assistant to correctly predict the World Cup winner? After a rough regular season, Bing picked things up in the playoffs, going 8-2 and correctly predicting a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl, First Scribe reports. While this could change during the week, as of Tuesday, Bing has the Patriots winning with a 51.5 percent chance.
