FanPost

What does Madden 17 Predict About the Arizona Cardinals (Final Preseason Edition)

Well, there's a reason this is just a video game and the NFL does not determine Super Bowl champions by computerized simulations - something that I am thankful for because it seems that Madden 17 HATES the Arizona Cardinals.

The Cards, one of the higher rated teams in the game (even above the Patriots) had a terrible time in this second round of full season simulations (this time with the regular season rosters in place) and never once even made the NFC Championship. Is it possible that the real life Cardinals do not exceed - or even match - their success from last year? Sure, in which case these simulations would actually be correct, especially on average, as disappointing as that would be. But while I do not take for granted the very small and scientifically unscientific nature of this sample size of Madden 17 simulations, I would have expected the Cardinals to match the hype at least once.

Thus out of ten pre-preseason simulations, and now with these ten preseason simulations, I assumed that out of twenty sims the Cardinals would have at least won the Super Bowl once.

But alas, it was not to be.

Boy do I hope that this was not a foreshadowing of things to come...

As I said I would in my first post, I will spare you from all the minutiae of these seasonal simulations (who would want to read about ten simulations in which the Cardinals never went all the way anyway) but I will provide you with some averages:

Overall the Cardinals didn't do terribly in the regular season. Over these ten simulations, they finished below .500 three times, once at 5-11 and twice at 7-9 (which to me seems like a pretty reasonable percentage of times things going very wrong), going 11-5 three times (a very plausible outcome), 14-2 once which was the best record in the NFL during that simulation (a dream scenario), and then 10-6, 9-7, and 9-6-1 once each.

That being said, via these simulations, I would say that overall the percentage of these outcomes seems pretty plausible. These average outcomes go out to 9.4 - 6.5 - .1 respectively. Nearly a full game better average than the 8.5 - 7.5 that the pre-preseason results came out to.

Statistically the offense fired on all cylinders. Palmer stayed healthy in every season but one, had a very good touchdown to interception ratio, often throwing under ten picks, and he regularly racked up over 4,000yrds, breaking 4,600yrds twice. David Johnson only broke 1,000 yards rushing once, but Larry Fitzgerald, Michael Floyd, and John Brown each looked great almost every sim. While the defense did seem to be the side of the ball that held the Cardinals from completing a trip to the Super Bowl overall, Robert Nkemdiche generally tore it up, once even recording 16.5 sacks, Calais Campbell has never looked better averaging close to ten sacks a season, and Chandler Jones was exactly who we wanted him to be. Also, Patrick Peterson had 5+ INTs on several occasions, with a high of 7 (incredible) but other than that, no one in the secondary really, truly impressed statistically, although Deone Buchannan led the team in tackles, I believe, all ten sims.

Obviously I would think that in reality most Cardinals fans and outsiders alike would generally put the Cardinals at double digit wins and make the playoffs, but with the injury history of Carson Palmer, the lack of a strong number two Cornerback opposite Patrick Peterson, and the overall fear that the Cardinals cannot exceed the NFC championship game of last year, I would believe that the percentage of outcomes would fall into the realm of possibility.

In these ten sims, the Cards made the playoffs 50% of the time, which I suppose is a decent average if you think about the difficulty of the division, winning the division crown three times, but from there never really succeeded. The 10-6 year was the only sim that the Cards won a playoff game, beating the Panthers in Carolina in the Wildcard round, but losing to the Saints by 11 in the Divisional game. In the other four appearances, they lost to the Cowboys by 3 in the Wildcard game once, the Panthers in the Divisional game once, and the Seahawks in the Divisional game twice, including a heart-wrenching 45-14 drubbing at home the year they went 14-2. In that sim Palmer went down to an injury early in the first quarter and Drew Stanton was unable to pull it out himself.

All-in-all, it was disappointing to not see the Cards ever even make it back to the NFC Championship, let alone the Super Bowl, so whether or not Madden 17 hates the Cardinals, if this average turns out to be true, then Cardinals fans are in for a very mediocre season to say the least, all things considered.

<em>This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Revenge of the Birds' (ROTB) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of ROTB's editors.</em>