GOOD NEWS!! Now, NFL fans don’t need to suffer through seasons of injuries to star players, off-field drama involving past-their-prime quarterbacks, or even collapsing stadiums.
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| EA's simulation picked the Pack back in September |
No more! That's because technology and new media are minimizing the game...and deflating the egos of sports broadcasters everywhere. You see, the genius publishers of the Madden NFL video games can now predict the winner of the Superbowl before the season even begins, so there is no longer any need to actually play the NFL season...or for sportscasters to wretchedly attempt to make their own, human predictions of the outcomes of sporting events.
You see, back in September EA simulated the upcoming 2010 NFL season. Eric Malinowski of Wired. com explained the results last fall:
You see, back in September EA simulated the upcoming 2010 NFL season. Eric Malinowski of Wired. com explained the results last fall:
Brett Favre may still be gunslinging up in Minnesota, but it’ll be his longtime fans in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that will celebrate a Super Bowl win this February, according to Electronic Arts.
“We wanted to give it a shot,” Phil Frazier, senior producer of the Madden franchise, told Wired.com. “There are a lot of variables at play with multiple teams, but we wanted to see how we do this year. It was one sim, and we let the chips fall where they may.
To be fair, there are some caveats. First, while EA correctly picked the Packers back in September, after their more recent simulation of Super Bowl XLV, EA pulled a Brett Favre, waffling and picking the Steelers to take the cake.
Plus, EA’s 6-2 record in predicting NFL champs is based on the predictions made just before the Super Bowl is played. We all know it’s easier to pick correctly between two teams than between 32. But hey, 6-2 still isn’t too shabby.
Peter King, the senior NFL writer for Sports Illustrated deserves a shout-out: In September's issue he foresaw a Steelers-Packers Super Bowl…but picked the black and yellow over the cheeseheads, 33-27. Close only counts in horseshoes. Turns out he's a mere mortal as well, just like the rest of us.
Football is a beautiful game. Picking the Super Bowl winner in September is a beautiful thing. Computers predicting the outcome of entire sporting seasons months before they actually occur (stealing the thunder of sportscasters like Clayton): not so beautiful.
I loved your post. Again, it kept me interested the entire time. Your use of multimedia was great. The videos helped me understand some of the things that you were talking about. I particularly liked the Madden video. It showed us the actual game predictions before they happened. The photographs added great visual design, as well as additional information to go along with the post.
ReplyDeleteYour use of sources was also very good. If I did not know what you were talking about, all I had to do was click on the name or thing and I would instantly find out. This definitely helps people like me who do not know anything about sports.
I also loved your writing. You added a lot of detail, as well as some humor. I would have like to have seen, however, maybe your experiences with Madden. Do you play it? What are your experiences with it? Have you been able to predict the Super Bowl results based on the game? Does this help you with things like Fantasy Football?