Super Bowl 57 is rushing up fast, and that means it’s time to predict a winner. EA Sports already did their annual prediction run, but we’ve got another trick up our sleeves. Madden 23 has a useful simulator that allows you to simulate 100 games between the Kansas City Chiefs and Philadelphia Eagles with their proper quarterbacks and dozens of many possibilities for how the game might play out. Some were close, while others were complete blowouts, but from the mass of data, you can piece together an idea of what may happen.
The Chiefs won 57 of the 100 simulated games, leaving the Eagles with just 43. If you rely on this outcome alone, Madden says the Chiefs have a clear advantage, and Patrick Mahomes plays a significant role in that lead. The most notable prediction for Mahomes is he’ll throw at least one touchdown pass and have at least 200 passing yards, if not more. The outlier was game 13, where Mahomes threw for 196 yards, but on the upside, he was responsible for three touchdowns.
27 of the Chiefs’ 57 wins saw Kansas City take home the gold, so to speak, with a lead of 10 or more points. Patrick Mahomes’ best game was number 18, where he threw a staggering 575 yards with four touchdown passes. However, that was also one of the games where the Chiefs barely scraped by with a win, as the final score was 48-45.
Only four games went into overtime, which is probably a good probability when predicting the Super Bowl outcome, and the Chiefs won all of them.
Out of those Eagles’ 43 wins, they won 14 of those them by 10 or more points. The Eagles have a better percentage for winning games by 10 or points compared to the Chiefs, despite losing more games in total. The stats for Jalen Hurts aren’t all that eye-popping, so it seems pretty evident that Madden thinks that, unlike Mahomes, Hurts won’t be the biggest deciding factor. Instead, it looks like the Eagles’ defense will play a decisive role.
Of course, Madden 23 simulations are just that, simulations. Even with 100 or more games, you can never really predict what might happen – what strokes of luck or quirks of fate might take the game in a completely unexpected direction come Super Bowl Sunday. One thing worth keeping in mind with these simulations is that since 2004, Madden’s Super Bowl predictions are 11-19. Madden has predicted the actual score and winner only once, in Super Bowl 49, and has a 50 percent success rate when predicting the outcome for the Chiefs when they make the Super Bowl.
They correctly predicted that the Chiefs would beat the San Francisco 49ers in Super Bowl 54, but then wrongly picked the Chiefs over the Tampa Bay Buccaneers for Super Bowl 55. As for the Eagles, Madden is also 50 percent when predicting the outcome if the Eagles make the Super Bowl, having predicted the Eagles would not win Super Bowl 39 correctly, but then incorrectly picking the Eagles to lose Super Bowl 52.
If you’re after some more simulation antics, check out what happened when we put the worst NFL teams together for the most awful Super Bowl imaginable.
Written by Raymond Goode on behalf of GLHF
