Eagles vs. Saints Week 11: Projected Winner for Wentz vs. Brees
This game looks like a passing-of-the-torch moment.
Goodbye, Philly. Hello, N’Awlins. This game looks like a passing-of-the-torch moment between last year’s waning champion Eagles and the ascendant Saints, who looked poised to take over Philadelphia’s mantle as the kings of the NFC, if not the Super Bowl.
Last year’s Eagles were fun. They gave us the Philly Special and had the world’s most ratchet craziest fans, who committed the most entertaining crimes after defeating the Patriots to win the Super Bowl. Our personal favorite? “We have a large crowd throwing bottles and chanting, ‘Meek Mill.’”
By contrast, this year’s flock looks tired. Uninspired. Morose. Moribund. All of the SAT vocabulary words. The Eagles had a chance to regain altitude and crack .500 last week against the Cowboys, but once again, Philly came out flat in an important game and has now failed to piece together back-to-back wins all season long. More importantly, the Eagles cost us money last week, as we errantly placed our money on our belief that they would right the ship in time for a second-half surge towards the playoffs.
Meanwhile, the Saints have taken the Eagles’ position as both the best and most fun in team in the NFC, cruising into this week’s matchup on an eight-game winning streak after an inexplicable loss in Week 1 against the Bucs. With the Saints at home, there’s no reason to expect anything different from either of these teams. Let’s not overthink this. Saints 31, Eagles 20 is my prediction, but how do a hive-mind of NFL experts see this one turning out?
To predict the result of this Week 11 match-up, Unanimous A.I. used what’s known as swarm intelligence. Some 30 NFL enthusiasts worked together as a hive mind to make their prediction. As you can see in the animation below, each participant controlled a golden magnet and used it to drag the puck toward the result they thought was the most likely outcome. This is where it gets interesting: As a user sees the puck move toward a particular decision, it triggers a psychological response. They might readjust their thinking as the group builds toward a consensus. It’s an artificial intelligence, produced by human brains, working together as a swarm.
The swarm of 30 NFL experts has high confidence that the Saints will win at home against the Eagles. As you can see, the swarm was nearly united in its thinking, dedicating 87 percent “brainpower” to its prediction.
The Eagles play at the Saints at 4:25 p.m. Eastern Sunday on Fox.
Here’s how Unanimous A.I. has predicted previous NFL games this season.
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:
