Via Bing.
Via Bing.

Bing Predicts updated its NFL playoff picks after Wild Card weekend, but still thinks the Patriots will win Super Bowl 50.

Using models which involve “traditional statistical models coupled with social listening and search analysis,” Microsoft’s search engine laid out its NFL playoff picks last week. It was correct in picking Seattle over Minnesota and Kansas City over Houston, but incorrectly predicted both Cincinnati and Washington to win.

bing11Given that Cincinnati lost and Kansas City won, the Steelers will now travel to Denver (No. 1 seed) as the lowest AFC seed remaining. That re-jiggered the second round match-ups and Bing’s predictions — it now has Denver over Pittsburgh (69 percent chance) and New England over Kansas City (64 percent chance), with the Broncos and Patriots meeting in the AFC Championship instead of Kansas City and New England.

For the NFC bracket, Bing is still sticking to Carolina (57 percent chance of beating Seattle) and Arizona beating Green Bay (72 percent), with the Panthers and Cardinals in the NFC Championship — sorry, Seahawks fans.

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Here is Bing’s prediction for the Seahawks game:

On Sunday, Seattle again travels east to play the early game. Last year, Seattle won at Carolina by 4 during the regular season and had a more favorable re-match by playing and winning the playoff game at home. Carolina gets the opportunity to do likewise this year, winning in Seattle by 4 and now coming home in the playoffs to try and sweep the season. Carolina led the league in scoring while Seattle allowed the fewest points, making this a proverbial ‘unstoppable force versus immovable object’ game. In this case, the immovable object is less rested and possibly still thawing out from wild card week  — Carolina gets the nod in this re-match.

Bing is still committed to New England beating Carolina in the Super Bowl.

“The biggest difference involves New England needing to go on the road Sunday, January 24th, to win at Denver in a re-match of dramatic overtime game Thanksgiving weekend,” Bing wrote today. “We project Kansas City still to lose at New England, but instead of that being a conference championship, it’ll be a divisional round playoff game.”

Over at rival prediction site FiveThirtyEight, Nate Silver’s team has Carolina over Seattle (55 percent), Arizona over Green Bay (66 percent), New England over Kansas City (51 percent), and Denver over Pittsburgh (58 percent). FiveThirtyEight also notes that Seattle has a 13 percent of winning the Super Bowl; Carolina, at 18 percent, is outpacing Arizona, Kansas City, and Denver, respectively, as the predicted champion.

Bing Predicts ended the regular NFL season with a 161-95 (63 percent) record.

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