This Sunday, televisions across the America will be our lord and master. More so than usual even! The Super Bowl, otherwise known as the “Big Game” to establishments not blessed with the approval of the NFL, will take place on the frozen fields of MetLife Stadium in East Rutherford, New Jersey. Either the Denver Broncos or the Seattle Seahawks will be crowned the NFL champions on February 2, but if you want a sneak peak we have you covered.
All season long we’ve been using Madden 25 to simulate the weekly NFL games with … mixed results. Madden 25 is a fickle beast, sometimes predicting games with uncanny accuracy, other times barely going .500 on a good week. We’ve tried different versions of the game on different systems, but the rigors of picking multiple games each week in a dynamic and ever-changing system like the NFL proved to confuse poor Madden’s digital brain.
Each year for the last decade, Electronic Arts has simulated the Super Bowl – and it’s been right eight out of ten times.
Each year for the last decade, Electronic Arts has simulated the Super Bowl – and it’s been right eight out of ten times. It’s on a two-game winning streak as well, having picked the Ravens and the Giants as the winners of the last two Super Bowls, despite both teams technically having been underdogs.
This year, EA ran its own simulation once again, and it’s predicting Denver to beat the Seahawks 31-28 in overtime. It’s not that we don’t trust EA, but we decided to run our own sims. The results were surprising … in the sense that they weren’t surprising at all.
In three games, played on three systems, using three separate copies of Madden 25, the results were the same. The scores were different, the stats varied, but in all three simulations Madden picked the Denver Broncos to win.
Here’s how it went down:
PlayStation 4
Denver 31 Seattle 23
Of the three simulated games, the one played on the PS4 was the closest. It started slowly with Seattle taking an early 6-0 nothing lead thanks to a pair of field goals. That didn’t last for long though. Denver quickly answered in the 2nd with three unanswered touchdowns.
Seattle made a late push in the 4th, but with 1:13 to go, Denver kicked a field goal that sealed the victory and gave Peyton Manning his second championship.
Throughout the game, Manning was brilliant. He threw for 299 yards with only 1 TD and 1 INT, but he completed an astounding 74-percent of his passes against the top rated defense in football. Russell Wilson threw for just 187 yards with no touchdowns and 2 costly INTs, and completed just over 50-percent of his throws. Marshawn Lynch, however, continued his Beast Mode, and ran for 103 yards with 2 TDs for Seattle.
Xbox One
Denver 42 Seattle 10
Of the three games – four if you count EA’s own simulation – the Xbox One version was by far the most lopsided. Denver came out hot and never looked back, scoring 28 unanswered points. Seattle finally scored with a field goal in the 3rd, but it was far too late.
Once again, Manning was dominant. The Broncos’ QB threw for 283 yards with 3 TDs and no interceptions. He also went an amazing 34 of 38, which would likely earn him a Super Bowl MVP trophy. Wilson went 17 for 23 for 139 and a TD, but also threw an interception that was returned for a touchdown.
With all the talk of Seattle’s impressive defense, it was Denver’s D that won the day. Lynch was held to just 24 yards, while Denver had four receivers with over 50 yards.
Xbox 360
Denver 31 Seattle 17
At this point, a third game was unnecessary, but we ran the sim anyway just because. Seemed like a shame to waste a perfectly good copy of Madden 25, and besides – this system is where we first began our weekly sims, so there was a certain synchronicity to it.
This game wasn’t nearly as big a blowout as the Xbox One version, but it was still a dominant performance from Denver. The Seahawks scored first with a TD in the 2nd, but Denver answered with two TDs and never looked back.
Of all the games though, this one saw Manning at his worst. Of course, Manning’s worst is better than most. He went 23 of 31 for 193 yards, and just 1 TD. Wilson, on the other hand, had a very, very bad game. Seattle’s digital quarterback threw for 183 yards and a touchdown, but also threw 3 interceptions. Lynch had 86 yards and Baldwin had 101 yards with a touchdown, but Denver, by comparison, didn’t have a single receiver with over 53 yards – instead it had multiple receivers with catches. That was the key to outwitting Seattle’s defense, which sent the Lombardi trophy back to Denver.
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