How does Madden 21 predict that the 2020 NFL season and Super Bowl LV will play out?
Madden 21 was released less than a week ago, which is a tell-tale sign that the 2020 NFL season is just around the corner. That is indeed the case with the year set to kick off on Sept. 10 with the Kansas City Chiefs hosting the Houston Texans. But before we get there, we obviously have to get all of our predictions for the 2020 NFL season in the chamber.
But why not let the EA Sports video game do the lifting to start out? It’s perfectly reasonable to look at a game that rates every player on every roster and letting Madden simulate how the NFL season will play out. Of course, it’s a game, meaning that things can always get a bit wild but it’s absolutely fascinating to see how a simulation of an entire season plays out.
Now, it should be noted that many fans have decried Madden 21 to this point. There have been starkly negative reviews about the latest iteration of the only widespread NFL video game on the market to this point, even with a new game mode and the excitement created by the buildup for a new season.
That, however, doesn’t totally affect the exercise at hand. Even if the gameplay hasn’t improved all that much, even if there are glitches that players experience and even if Franchise Mode remains lackluster compared to what many fans want, when you simulate the 2020 NFL season on Madden, all your getting is the results of what these players have been rated and the randomness of given games.
You may not want to take this as gospel — especially some of the simulated predictions we’re about to see — but let’s see how this Madden 21 simulation of the 2020 NFL season predicts how the year will play out. We’ll first go through the standings of each division (playoff seeding noted in parentheses), look at the award winners and statistical leaders and then break down the playoff matchups before crowning the winner of Super Bowl LV.
We start with the predicted standings in the AFC.