It’s Tremendous Bowl week, which suggests the sporting information cycle is filled with the identical previous shit it’s yearly. Empty interviews, retrospectives on Tremendous Bowls previous, infinite predictions on who’s going to win on Sunday…and one prediction specifically, which comes round each season like clockwork.
I get it, the Tremendous Bowl is the largest sport of the season, and pundits have two entire weeks of anticipation to construct as much as, so making an attempt to work out which one in all two groups will emerge victorious is a straightforward scores pull/pageview generator. Most of these calls are made by women and men making some calculations in their very own head, although; solely Madden tries to do it through the artwork of simulation.
As they’ve accomplished since Tremendous Bowl XXXVIII in 2003, EA Sports activities has run the groups and rosters for the massive sport via its system, performed out a sport and bought a consequence. That consequence was a 31-17 win for the Eagles over the Chiefs.
Earlier than you go taking that to the financial institution, although, both since you’re an Eagles fan or you may have a religious perception within the sanctity of Madden’s participant scores and matchday authenticity, you need to know that for all the eye EA Sports activities likes to lavish on these simulations, and for all the eye paid to them—this 12 months’s prediction has its personal trailer—the sport’s monitor report isn’t significantly better than flipping a coin.
Since that first public try again in 2003, Madden has efficiently predicted the winner of the sport 11 occasions, which means it’s got it fallacious on eight events (you possibly can take a look at a full rundown of every rating right here). That 11-8 report is over .500, you would possibly say, sufficient to a minimum of make the playoffs and absolutely extra correct than most flesh-based pundits. Particularly when you think about the sport’s Tremendous Bowl XLIX prediction was very correct, nailing not simply the winner however the actual rating as nicely (NE 28 – 24 SEA).
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However lately the wheels have fallen off! For the primary decade of its simulations Madden practically all the time bought the winner proper. For 4 of the final 5 years, although, and 6 of the final 9, its predictions have landed within the L column, which means it merely can’t be trusted to be predicting the winner on Sunday with any extra accuracy than tossing a coin, rolling some cube or asking an octopus to crawl in the direction of a flag (truly, to be honest Paul was excellent at his job).
All of which is to say, based mostly on this 31-17 prediction I stay up for seeing the Chiefs win 24-10.
