Patriots vs. Steelers Predictions: Full Preview for Tom Brady vs. Ben Roethlisberger
A hive-mind of NFL experts has made its prediction for this Week 15 match-up.
Can the Steelers hold on? At 7-5-1, Pittsburgh still clings to the division lead in the AFC North, but things haven’t been pretty as of late: the Steelers have lost their last three games in a row, and the schedule doesn’t get much easier from here. The Patriots come to town this weekend, then the Steel Crew heads south for a matchup with the Saints next weekend.
Will the Patriots strike the coup de grace to the staggering Steelers’ season? By now, perhaps Pittsburgh fans should expect New England to end their season, as the Patriots eliminated the Stillers Steelers in the AFC Championship Game two seasons ago. Last year, the Patriots also knocked off the Steelers in December, aided by a BS controversial call that robbed Pittsburgh of a would-be touchdown catch by tight end Jesse James. The NFL doesn’t know what a catch is, and these things always, always work out in the Patriots’ favor. That’s just how the cookie crumbles.
Speaking of the devil, the Patriots are 9-4 and in the driver’s seat in the AFC East, but recently lost on a wild and miraculous hook-and-ladder play by the upstart Miami Dolphins as time expired in last week’s game. Patriots tight end Rob Gronkowski “did sucky” in coverage, as he so eloquently put it after the game, after slipping and failing to tackle Kenyan Drake as he scampered into the end zone.
Regardless of how this game goes, New England ends the season with games against the Bills and Jets, and another 10- or 11-win season seems all but assured. We would love nothing more than for the Patriots to stumble again and put their playoff hopes in jeopardy (an improbable but still-possible outcome), but we doubt it. Patriots 27, Steelers 24 is my prediction, but how does a hive-mind of NFL experts see this game ending up?
To predict the result of this Week 15 match-up, Unanimous A.I. used what’s known as swarm intelligence. A “swarm” of 34 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.
As the replay of the swarm shows, there’s little doubt from the hive-mind that the Patriots will beat the Steelers on the road on Sunday.
The Patriots play at the Steelers at 4:25 p.m. Eastern Sunday on CBS.
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:
