Hey Jarodd,
just wanna give you a quick update. I moved my offense to the black setting but kept defense at blue, because red would just be too easy. However, I bumped USER pass block up a notch, because my RB just wasn't gettin' it done. MY QB's had more rushing yardage LOL!
I tested the settings on various saves to get a feel with good and bad teams. I love the results, but for a reason I didn't expect. Because it is hard to drive against the defense when on black settings, I was forced to take it slowly and had mostly long, sustained drives, usually about 11-15 plays each. It also made me start concentrating on EVERY SINGLE DOWN. You really have to play each down as if it is 3rd and six. I had to learn to really pay attention to pre-snap reads and audible accordingly. I still threw some INT's but only because of stupid, bad decisions.
For anyone struggling I really suggest making sure you keep your offense on the field. You hear commentators on TV talk about that all the time, and in this game, if you struggle on defense as I do, it is imperative.
This also meant that the CPU offense had, at the end of the day, very realistic stats, which was my main goal in the first place.
I lost a lot with the weak teams but won often with strong teams. Very often even the strong teams had quite a tough time, but for some odd reason, I could pull away in the 4th quarter. Perhaps a stamina issue? Either way, I love these settings.
As a side note to toot my own horn: My Dolphins had a great upset over Denver last night, but only because of a huge amount of luck. I returned the openeing KO for a TD. First Broncos drive I returned a fumble 10 yds for TD, next drive I had a pick-six, 33yds. At the end of the 1st quarter I was up 21-0. Their offense after that became relentless and I barely managed a 35-31 win. Great game!