OK, I know this is not writing-related, but here’s what will be filling this blog for the next few weeks.

Am I Smarter Than Madden 27?

This year I decided to run a little contest to see whether or not I can beat Madden 27 in predicting wins-losses, yards, and on for Bills games. After all, EA Sports says ,“If it’s in the game, it’s in the game,” suggesting they have quite the football AI.

Here are the rules:

Madden will be in simulation mode, and will use the most current rosters and playbooks pushed by EA. I’ll run the simulations using simulation mode and as Quick Play games. The computer plays versus itself…all I have to do is watch. Madden will take 5-10 games and average all the points, states, etc, and submit that as one prediction, and I’ll also use their last simulation as a second “guess” by the CPU. I will make my guesses about the outcomes, and we’ll see who does better.

Win/Loss & Score: The real Bills won their first game by five points. Madden’s single-game sim produced a Bills loss, so it was automatically in Iast. My personal guess was an 11-point Bills win, but Madden’s average-based results were closer, with a nine-point Bills victory. So there’s a point for the sim.

Bills Passing Yards: Josh Allen was on fire for this game, ending the real thing going 20 of 25 for 325 yards and 2 TDs. I had predicted 30 of 35 for 302 yards for 2 TDs and an INT. So the point spread was precisely the same as Madden’s.  In the 10-game simulation, things averaged out to 26 of 34 for 255 . one TD and no INTs. The single game sim came up with 26 of 34, an 8-point separation that makes the passing stats for sim-avg the top dog. As far as passing yards, Josh ripped off 325 yards, meaning my 302 prediction was closest.

Bills Rushing yards. In rushing yards, the Sim-Avg took first place again for James Cook, who only ran for 57 yards. And in defensive stats, the Bills dished out three sacks, while none of our three “contestants” guessed exactly, the real Bills sacked CJ Stroud three times, so both my guess and the Madden single=game were over and eliminated, meaning the sim-avg won again. And finally, interceptions. I was again eliminated for going over, and the Sim-Avg won again.

So in week one, the Madden AI trounced both its single-sim counterpart and my gut-based predictions.

Yep, AI is taking over the world, one video game at a time.

But in the meantime, I’m on Sim #6 for the Lions game. It’s a short week, so I might not get the whole 10 simulations done, but I’ll try.