NFL Week 1 Bengals vs Ravens: Madden 18 simulation

The Cincinnati Bengals are playing their first regular season game Sunday against the Baltimore Ravens in Paul Brown Stadium. This season, I will be trying to predict the outcome of the Bengals’ season through simulations in Madden 18. I will not take part in the game at all myself, everything will be done by the computer to best preserve the heart of the simulation nature. Hopefully every single one of these predictions end with the Bengals 19-0. Of course it would be even better if the predictions were also correct and the Bengals end up 16-0 at the end of the regular season. No matter what, it is going to be great to finally see the Bengals back out there playing a meaningful game on Sunday.

To start the game, the Bengals receive the ball and with a touchback, the Bengals get the ball on the 25 yard line. In his first regular season game since his devastating ACL injury in 2016, Giovani Bernard rushes for 15 yards. The Bengals continue to move the ball down the field with no problem until around midfield, Brandon LaFell exploits a hole in the zone and Dalton hits him deep for the touchdown. Randy Bullock makes the extra point to put the Bengals up 7-0 with 5:36 left in the first.

The Bengals hold the Ravens to a three-and-out and get the ball back with a punt. On the Bengals’ second drive of the game, Dalton hits Tyler Eifert way down the sideline into the redzone. Bernard almost finishes up the drive by taking a screen to the one yard line. Jeremy Hill punches it in on third down. Randy Bullock nails the extra point to put the Bengals up 14-0.

After the kickoff, the Ravens proceed to march right down the field, but the drive stalled out at the fifty and forced them to punt. However, the Bengals also couldn’t get much going and punted, too. With less than two minutes left in the half, the Ravens had another third and out, giving the ball back to the Bengals with a little more than one minute left in the half. With a deep shot to Eifert, Dalton scored another touchdown right at the end of the half taking the Bengals into halftime up 21-0.

Both teams traded off punts to open the second half and with only one minute left in the third quarter, the Ravens received the ball. Baltimore slowly marched down the field, exploiting the Bengals linebackers and run defense and with four minutes left in the game, the Ravens scored a touchdown to make the score of the game 21-7.

On the first play on the next drive Andy Dalton was nearly sacked and threw an interception to Eric Weddle. All of a sudden, the Ravens were back in the game.

The Ravens marched back into the redzone where the Bengals’ bend, but don’t break defense does not break and the Bengals get the ball back with two minutes left in the game and a 14 point lead. The Bengals worked away the clock with Hill and walked away with the 21-7 win to put their overall record at 1-0.

Will Sunday’s outcome be similar?