The Madden Experiment

The NFL playoffs are in full swing so we decided to run an experiment with Madden. Its Madden vs. NFL playoffs with the latest Madden rosters. Now we know that there should have been some changes to the rosters and especially during the playoff run. Arizona was without Boldin was a major one and some of the players on all teams should have seen there ratings rise after there wins last week. What we did is to run those games in spectator mode three times to get what we figured would be the closest result. In other words Arizona vs. New Orleans was played three times and so on. Can Madden really predict games? Remember EA said the Patriots were going to take it all but I am sure they didn’t count for Welker blowing out his knee. We didn’t include stats just scores. Here are the results.

Arizona vs. New Orleans

* Boldin is still on the roster for these games and Warner should have probably been bumped after his wildcard game. We also think the Cardinals secondary and defense was suspect against the Packers and probably should have seen some decrease.

Game 1

New Orleans 51
Arizona 45

The game had insane numbers from both teams.

Game 2

New Orleans 20
Arizona 25

This game was close. Brees drove down the field in the final minute and hit his WR in the back of the end zone but was not in bounds.

Game 3

New Orleans 59
Arizona 38

This game was a complete blow out. I was shocked Arizona even got 38.

Actual Outcome

New Orleans 45
Arizona 14

Looks like Madden got this one right even with Boldin in the game. New Orleans took 2 out 3 games.

Indianapolis vs. Baltimore

* Not sure if updating the rosters would have mattered much on this game.

Game 1

Indy 31
Baltimore 17

The things that hurt Baltimore in this game and hurts them as well in the following games is not having a great WR. The passing game from Baltimore is lacking.

Game 2

Balt 34
Indy 17

Was actually shocked Baltimore won but they did it on the ground.

Game 3

Indy 28
Balt 21

Final game and Madden got this one right as well.

Actual Outcome

Indy 20
Balt 3

Dallas vs. Minnesota

Dallas was a hot team coming into the playoff weekend but Minnesota had rest on there side and a great defensive line.

Game 1

Minn 16
Dallas 14

Game 2

Minn 27
Dallas 24

Game 3

Dallas 27
Minn 24

Madden saw all these games as tight games but the outcome was much different.

Actual Outcome

Minn 34
Dallas 3

San Diego vs. NY Jets

Personally I think both of these teams should have had roster updates. The Jets playbook on defense has also changed a great deal with Rex Ryan in the mix. This was the only experiment that was the opposite of the actual outcome of the game.

Game 1

San Diego 41
NY Jets 38

San Diego 22
NY Jets 19

San Diego 28
NY Jets 21

All the games were settled by less than a TD.

Actual Outcome

NY Jets 17
San Diego 14

Madden was wrong all the way around of on this one. The one thing Madden doesn’t account for is how hungry a team is for a win and the Jets were hungry.

All in all in the end 75% isn’t bad. It was interesting to see how this all played out and for the most part Madden is right on when predicting games. I was shocked however the Jets didn’t at least pick up one game. We are going to run the again for the divisional playoffs and see what we get so come back next week.

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