Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. News

‘Madden 25’ predicts a very, very bad week for the Miami Dolphins

By
madden 25 nfl week 8 picks tom brady 13
Image used with permission by copyright holder

This week and every week for the remainder of the NFL season, we will bring you weekly game predictions courtesy of EA Sports’ Madden NFL 25. Our methodology: Each week we will update the rosters using the game’s roster download feature to make sure the game lineups reflect the real teams, then we’ll simulate the week’s match-ups using the Franchise Owner mode. We’ll record the simulation’s scores, its best players of the week, and the injury reports, then post these results each Saturday. This makes the Thursday game something of a litmus test (Madden 25 is 5-2 so far this season on Thursday games) – you can use this info for fantasy or gambling purposes. Or you can ignore it entirely. What does Madden know about football, anyway?

Say what you will about Madden 25’s ability to predict the winners, the game isn’t afraid to pick blowouts. Despite the parity in the NFL that can turn Super Bowl winners into sub .500 teams, Madden continues to predict the odd blowout. And not just a win by a few touchdowns, but a staggering display of dominance.

Recommended Videos

This week’s blowout is sponsored by Tom Brady and the Patriots, who Madden 25 picks to win big over Miami. 51-0 big. That doesn’t come close to the epic, record-setting beatdown the Chicago Bears put on the Washington Redskins in 1940, but it would probably sting Dolphins fans a bit. It would also drop the Dolphins net points this season from -5 to -56. Now, second-year QB Ryan Tannehill may be coming off of a game where his QB rating was 71.2 and he threw for under 200 yards with 2 INTs, but the Patriots defense is a few injuries away from going up into the stands of Foxboro Stadium and conscripting fans into service. A 51-point blowout seems a tad unlikely, but it is a divisional game at home for the Patriots, and the 3-3 Dolphins are a tied with the Pats at 2-2 in the division. Maybe Belichick will decide it’s time to make a statement.

Last week Madden 25 went a decent 9-6, but also predicted the Chiefs winning streak would come to an end while selecting the Broncos to continue theirs. Although it was only by a point, a win is a win, and the Chiefs remain the only undefeated team thanks to some help from the Colts, who ruined Peyton Manning’s Indianapolis homecoming. According to Madden 25 though, the Chiefs will move to 8 and 0 in week 8, while the Broncos will pick up a second loss.  Of course, neither result is anything close to guaranteed, but Madden is off to a good start this week. It correctly predicted the winner of Carolina versus Tampa Bay – although with both Jacksonville and Tampa Bay in a sprint to the bottom, maybe that wasn’t a huge stretch.  

Week 8 League Leaders:

Quarterbacks

Tom Brady: 416 yards 4 TD 1 INT
Drew Brees: 352 yards 3 TD
Peyton Manning: 343 yards 3 TD 2 INT
Andy Dalton: 312 yards 2 TD 1 INT
Robert Griffin III: 267 yards 2 TD, 93 yards rushing 1 TD

Wide Receivers

Danny Amendola: 153 yards 2 TD
AJ Green: 121 yards 1 TD
Dez Bryant: 118 yards 1 TD
Calvin Johnson: 116 yards 2 TD
Demaryius Thomas: 107 yards 1 TD

Running Backs

Jamal Charles: 146 yards 1 TD
DeMarco Murray: 123 yards 2 TD
Maurice Jones-Drew: 111 yards 1 TD
Reggie Bush: 108 yards 1 TD
CJ Spiller: 105 yards 1 TD

Injuries

Wes Welker(WR): 4 weeks Dislocated elbow
Frank Gore (HB): 3 weels Pulled groin
Marshawn Lynch (HB): 8 weeks Broken fibula
Owen Daniels (TE): 2 weeks Pulled groin

Week 8 Game Results

Thursday Night Game

Madden Result   Actual Result  
Carolina: 27 Tampa Bay: 3 Carolina: 31 Tampa Bay: 13

Sunday Games

Madden Result   Actual Result  
San Francisco: 20  Jacksonville: 0 San Francisco: 42 Jacksonville: 10
Kansas City: 20 Cleveland: 17 Kansas City: 23 Cleveland: 17
New England: 51 Miami: 0 New England: 27 Miami: 17
New Orleans: 38 Buffalo: 28 New Orleans: 35 Buffalo: 17
Detroit: 32 Dallas: 23 Detroit: 31 Dallas: 30
NY Giants: 28 Philadelphia: 14 NY Giants: 15 Philadelphia: 7
Pittsburgh: 26 Oakland: 14 Pittsburgh: 18 Oakland: 21
Cincinnati: 39 NY Jets: 21 Cincinnati: 49 NY Jets: 9
Atlanta: 27 Arizona: 3 Atlanta: 13 Arizona: 27
Washington: 34  Denver: 31 Washington: 21 Denver: 45
Green Bay: 30 Minnesota: 10 Green Bay: 44 Minnesota: 31

Monday Night Game

Madden Result   Actual Result  
Seattle: 20 St. Louis: 13  Seattle: 14 St. Louis: 9

Editors' Recommendations

Topics
Ryan Fleming
Ryan Fleming
Former Digital Trends Contributor
Ryan Fleming is the Gaming and Cinema Editor for Digital Trends. He joined the DT staff in 2009 after spending time covering…
Madden NFL 23’s development was somber and self-aware
This mid-air hit is an example of one of Madden NFL 23's new disruptive FieldSense animations.

While EA's Madden football games often top sales charts every year, those sales haven't reflected quality. The critical consensus on the series has been on the decline in recent years, and Madden NFL 22 was riddled with bugs that hampered the experience. Thankfully, the developers are aware of Madden's flaws and trying to improve its signature gameplay with Madden NFL 23.
Madden 23 Official Reveal Trailer
Speaking to Digital Trends, Executive Producer of Gameplay Aaron McHardy painted a picture of a more somber and reflective development of Madden NFL 23 as EA Tiburon mourned rthe passing of series namesake John Madden and tried to make up for the franchise's past failures. While Digital Trends hasn't gone hands-on with the game yet, McHardy highlights that Madden NFL 23 will address many issues fans have thanks to a plethora of bug fixes and a new suite of features called FieldSENSE that touches every part of the experience.
"The investment in FieldSENSE, bug fixes, and gameplay was so big because we know FieldSENSE hits whether you're playing Franchise, Ultimate Team, The Yard, or a quick match with a friend on your couch," McHardy tells Digital Trends. "It's exciting because it hits every part of the game, every mode you're playing. We feel like anyone who plays Madden NFL 23 can really feel something new and different in the game this year."
Check out our Summer Gaming Marathon hub
Exterminating bugs
Before the team could make Madden NFL 23's gameplay better, they had to fix what was broken already. The past few Madden titles have all been riddled with bugs, and the situation got worse than ever with Madden NFL 22. The annual release schedule and pandemic had finally caught up to EA Tiburon's game quality. McHardy outlined the steps the developers are taking to ensure it (hopefully) doesn't happen again.
"We looked at how we developed the game and scoured the internet, and actually got our QA department to, within our dev tools, log every complaint that we could find to track them," McHardy explains. "Where possible, we'd go in and analyze that to figure out what the actual issue was that was causing someone to complain. If there was a video, we put it in our database, and if it was a general complaint about an area of our game, we'd gather them all together and figure out what all the issues are."
"We are hyperfocused on making the most polished game that we can."

This process was thorough, as the developers ended up with a list of "hundreds" of bugs and issues that EA Tiburon could improve. The team then fixed some issues as part of Madden NFL 22's live-service updates and took anything they couldn't fix into account when planning Madden NFL 23's development.
"In the way that we plan new features every year, we were also planning fixes for all of those bugs to make sure that we fixed them and also have time left to catch new ones we are creating," he said. "Polish was a big thing for us on the team this year, so while there are still some bugs because we aren't finished, we feel like the game is already in a better position this year than it was at this time last year. We are hyperfocused on making the most polished game that we can."
We won't know for sure whether or not this will all really pan out until the game is in our hands this August, but it seems like EA knows where it messed up and wants to do better.
Sensible changes

Read more
The history of the Madden Curse
John Madden bursts through the cover of Madden NFL 23: All Madden Edition.

More than 20 years into the iconic franchise's history, there's almost no escaping the Madden Curse. Since Garrison Hearst broke his ankle in 1998 shortly after appearing on the cover of Madden NFL 99, most of the players who starred on the game's cover have suffered an injury the following season. Of the 22 players who have been selected to grace the cover of Madden games, 16 have had troubling or abruptly shortened seasons following their cover debut -- including several who suffered season-ending injuries shortly after their game hit shelves.

EA Sports continues to dismiss any serious talk of a curse hovering over its wildly successful franchise and attributed the rash of injuries and other negative, post-cover issues to an athlete's natural regression after a season of peak performance. They're probably right -- but Madden NFL 21 gave us another chance to test the curse. Lamar Jackson seemingly passed the test, but the injury bug plagued the Ravens backfield a season later in the form of season-ending injuries to all their running backs.

Read more
Madden NFL 23’s ‘no-brainer’ cover star is John Madden
John Madden bursts through the cover of Madden NFL 23: All Madden Edition.

EA has confirmed rumors that Coach John Madden will be the cover star of Madden NFL 23. 
John Madden, who had a long career as both the coach of the Oakland Raiders and a football analyst, died in December 2021. EA is honoring Madden -- the namesake and inspiration behind its highly successful football game franchise -- by renaming a recently renovated field at its Redwood Shores headquarters to the "John Madden Field" and putting him on the cover of Madden NFL 23. There will be three unique covers, including one by artist Chuck Styles for the digital-exclusive Madden NFL 23 All-Madden Edition.

Speaking to Digital Trends, executive producer Aaron McHardy said that EA typically looks at the most exciting and Madden brand-aligned athletes in the NFL when choosing a cover star. But he says there wasn't much of a debate about who would headline the next game after the team learned of Madden's death.
"I don't even think there were discussions as everybody just arrived at the fact that he's going back on the cover because we have to honor him in the best way we possibly can," McHardy said. "It's been so long since he was on the cover of the game, but the game has got his name on it every single year, so we wanted to do everything we could to honor the legend like he is, and it was a no-brainer to put him on the cover." 
Madden is not just being honored on the cover. The first thing players will experience when booting up Madden NFL 23 is a fictional game where two versions of Madden are facing off against each other with all-star teams of athletes in the 1970s Oakland Coliseum. This game will even include real voice clips from Madden, remastered just for this experience. McHardy also believes Madden's influence can be felt outside of that opening game because his death encouraged the development team to work harder. 
"I didn't have the pleasure of speaking with him, but I know a lot of the guys on the team did." McHardy continued. "He was invested in making sure that our game was the most authentic 11v11 football game that it could be. It was obviously a sad and somber moment to lose someone like Coach Madden, but it really energized the team in a way this year to think about our features, what we're building, and how we can honor that legacy." Madden NFL 23 will be released for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S later this year. 

Read more