I have included some stats about the frequency of certain occurrences in the NFL that can be translated to Madden sliders. The avg frequency is given, along with numbers in parenthesis which are the ranges for the best/worst NFL team in each stat. Stats are from ESPN.com for 2009 NFL season unless noted.
Broken Tackles: Avg once per 17 total plays (11-30)
Stats via
http://www.footballoutsiders.com/fo-...broken-tackles
They give broken tackles as a % of total plays; Madden 11 only gives the stat for rushers. But basically, if a team ran 60 plays it should have no more than 3-4 broken tackles, total. That counts WR's that break tackles (you'll have to keep track of this yourself.) Broken tackles in the NFL occur FAR LESS than what I -and everyone else, judging by broken tackle stats I've seen posted on this site- have witnessed in Madden 11. The tackling slider should go up and break tackle slider should go down. This should alleviate some of the big plays, short drives, and high scoring games. I believe EA had a high amount of broken tackles out of the box because its more fun that way and gives the "casual" gamer more control; its more exciting.
**With this being said, I know many people have raised this slider for the CPU hoping to jump-start the CPU running game. My approach will be to bump up their run blocking by a hefty amount only, not bumping up their break tackles.
Passes Defensed: Avg once per 7 Pass Att's (5.5-9.5)
-Int slider should be down, but pass reaction time up. Seems a pass gets batted down more than I thought. I'm going to tune this before I mess with QB accuracy.
Interception: Avg once per 34 Pass Att's (18-68)
This is a tough slider to get down pat, but in general interceptions are not too common and only happen semi-frequently with the bad QB's. This is a slider you need many games to really tweak correctly, but to be safe I'd put it on the low side. Remember, passes are "defensed" once/7 att's but only intercepted once/34. (See above)
Sack: Avg once per 16 Pass Att's (11-30)
-Maybe we are being too nit-picky about the sacks when the comp is about to throw; sacks happen on avg every 16 attempts. That's about 2 sacks per team per regulation game. I believe the key is balancing out the pass rushing/pass blocking sliders to where pressure affects the play and how quick a QB has to let the ball go, but a sack should still be hard to come by and thus, very rewarding.
Tackle For Loss: Avg once per 7 runs
**I only have this stat for the 2009 NY Giants defense. I couldn't find a breakdown of all 32 teams totals so I manually added up all of the Giants tackles for losses (the "stuff" stat on ESPN.com player profiles.) I will compile stats for a few more teams if I cannot find a breakdown of the whole NFL.
But... if the Giants are anywhere near avg against the run (they seemed to be; they were horrid against the pass), then a run should get blown up in the backfield every 6-8 rushes. The block shedding slider can be tuned accordingly.