Can Tecmo Bowl Tell the Future?

So we've done our Tecmo Super Bowl prediction for eight years now, but this is the first time we let the computer control both teams and used updated rosters. Granted, our rosters were one year old, but it was still most of the key players from this year's Denver Broncos and Carolina Panthers.

So how close were we? In many ways, we were pretty close!

Below are some of the similarities that I noticed as I watched Super Bowl 50:

• The final score of Super Bowl 50 was 24-10, which was the score we had in Tecmo until a late Broncos TD made the final 31-10.

• The halftime score of 13-7 was not far off from Tecmo's 17-7.

• Panthers kicker Graham Gano made a big second-half field goal to get Carolina to 10 points and within one score. On Tecmo it was 17-10, while in the real game Gano made it 16-10. (It was also a crazy 62-yarder on Tecmo.)

• In our Tecmo game, the Broncos defense forced a Newton fumble and nearly ran it in for a score. Of course, they did this twice in the real game, scoring a touchdown on one of them.

• And finally, while Peyton Manning didn't complete 90 percent of his passes like he did in the Tecmo battle, he was still above 50 percent, unlike Cam Newton, who managed 30 percent in Tecmo and was barely better in real life, at 43 percent. (Newton did gain more yardage than Manning, of course, out passing him 265 to 141.)

Overall, I'd say our Tecmo preview/prediction was fairly accurate, especially when considering most people saw the Broncos as huge underdogs. Next year we'll try to have the most updated rosters we can find.