Cardinals Vs. 49ers: The Game Played As A Madden Simulation

Time for another Madden Sim, this week playing out the week fourteen matchup between the Cardinals and 49ers.

Again, I am using 15 minute quarters, the rosters are the most recent ones, and the game is played through the Super Sim mode.

The only change I made to the rosters this week was making Patrick Peterson the punt returner instead of Andre Roberts, because EA still hasn't done that.

(Note: My math error in the boxscore area has been fixed. The reason for the error is explained in the comments)

Game Summary:

The Cards are looking for revenge, lets see if they can get it.

Everything started off good for the Cardinals, they got on the board first with a one yard run by Beanie. Then in the second quarter both teams got a touchdown, first the 49ers connected on a 42 yard scoring pass from Smith to Ginn, and Kolb responded by throwing a 20 yard touchdown to Sampson. Going into the half, the Cards were up 14-7.

The third quarter also went pretty well for the Cardinals, they scored on a 43 yard boot from Feely and a 24 yard pass from Kolb to Roberts. This gave the Cards a 24-7 lead.

But then, everything went downhill for Big Red.

In the fourth, the 49ers responded with a one yard run by Gore to make it a 10 point game. Then they were able to keep the Cardinals offense in check for the rest of the game and take the lead with a 24 yard touchdown pass from Smith to Williams and another one yard run by Gore. After this, the Cardinals offense was unable to get any sort of rally going, and what looked like it would be a big win just turned into a repeat of the Baltimore game.

So, what are my thoughts on this game? The big one looking at the stats is that Kolb wound up throwing four picks in this one. Now, I don't get to look at the drive charts so I don't know when most of them were thrown, but looking at some of the third down numbers that will be in the bottom of this post which were actually pretty good for the Cards, I'm guessing that most of them came in the fourth quarter. One thing I have seen a lot with Madden is that in the fourth quarter of games, sometimes the AI will do everything it can to help the other team win, and I have seen things like balls going through receivers chests and getting picked off by the defensive back behind them when that happens. In this one, the game just wanted the 49ers to win, so it looks like they just had the Cardinals offense and defense completely implode after building a 24-7 lead at the end of the third quarter.

So, in the end, the Madden Cardinals lose 24-28 to the 49ers. Their record also drops down to 5-8.

Box Score:

Notable Stats:

Passing:

Kevin Kolb - 21 of 36 for 279, 2 TD, 4 Int

Alex Smith - 13 of 23 for 213, 2 TD, Int

Rushing:

Beanie Wells - 20 for 54, TD

Frank Gore - 25 for 97, 2 TD

Fumbles - None

Receiving:

Larry Fitzgerald - 8 for 111

Andre Roberts - 3 for 55, TD

Early Doucet - 1 for 17, TD

Kyle Williams - 3 for 91, TD

Ted Ginn - 3 for 78, TD

Dropped Passes - None

Defense:

Sacks -O'Brien Schofield

Int - Patrick Peterson, Tramaine Brock, Navorro Bowman, Tarell Brown, Carlos Rogers

Kicking:

Jay Feely - 1 of 1

David Akers - 0 of 2

Total Offense:

Cards - 357

49ers - 333

3rd/4th Down:

Cards - 10 of 16, 0 of 1

49ers - 6 of 15, 1 of 1