Saints vs. Ravens: Predictions, Preview and Projected Winner for Sunday's Matchup
The Year of Offense continues.
Something’s gotta give in this matchup between the high-flying Saints and the defensive-minded Ravens. At 4-1, New Orleans looks like the class of the NFC (along with the undefeated Rams) and now boasts the NFL’s all-time leader in passing yards, the immortal Drew Brees.
Meanwhile, the Ravens enter the contest at 4-1, atop the AFC North, and fresh off an epic beatdown of the surprisingly-competent Tennessee Titans, in a game in which Baltimore’s defense sacked Titans quarterback Marcus Mariota 11 (‼‼‼‼‼!) times. We haven’t seen that many epic takedowns since the roast of Justin Bieber.
The hoary chestnut holds that defense wins championships. We applied the conventional wisdom earlier this season, and got egg on our faces. We may be dumb, but we’re not stupid. This is the Year of the Offense.
To predict the result of this Week 7 match-up, Unanimous A.I. used what’s known as swarm intelligence to forecast the week’s slate. Some 29 NFL enthusiasts worked together as a hive mind to make picks. As you can see in the animation below, each participant controlled a little golden magnet and used it to drag the puck toward the answer they thought was the most likely outcome. As the users saw the puck move toward a particular decision, it triggered a psychological response. They readjusted their decision-making, building toward the consensus you see below. It’s an artificial intelligence produced by human brains working together as a swarm.
As the replay of the decision made by a hive-mind of 29 NFL experts shows, the swarm has picked New Orleans to win on the road at Baltimore. The Swarm AI likes New Orleans in this one. We agree. Saints 28, Ravens 24.
The Saints play at the Ravens at 4:05 p.m. Eastern Sunday on Fox.
Unanimous A.I. has made some scarily accurate predictions in the past using swarm intelligence, as our this article explains. For instance, the swarm picked this year’s Oscar winners with 94 percent accuracy. Here’s Unanimous A.I. founder Louis Rosenberg explaining swarm intelligence at a recent TEDx Talk:
