I wanted to share my research and observations for gameplay and sliders in the past couple months in Franchise Mode. All the games have been played in slow sim Cpu vs Cpu on a PS5, so if you are looking for Player vs Cpu sliders you are in the wrong place. I am taking statistics from 172 games with every team that were all slow simmed, so it is a pretty good sample size. Read below to see my reasoning and explanations for the following settings.
League Settings
Skill Level = Pro
Game Style = Simulation
Superstar Abilities = off
Progressive Fatigue = off (Progressive fatigue is broken unless you take control of all 32 teams. The CPU players will be fatigued at the end of the season and won't perform well)
Practice Injury = on
Minimum Roster Size = 53 (need extra players on the roster since the computer doesnt sign new players when placing a player on injured reserve)
Quarter Length = 15 minutes
Accelerated Clock = on
Minimum Play Clock Time = 10 seconds
League Sliders (only CPU Skill matters)
QB Accuracy = 50
Pass Blocking = 47
WR Catching = 36
Run Blocking = 25
Fumbles = 36
Pass Defense Reaction Time = 100
Interceptions = 55
Pass Coverage = 100
Tackling = 38
Special Teams sliders dont have any affect in slow sim in franchise mode. This is a flaw that we need to get EA to fix.
Injuries = 10
Fatigue = 100
Min Player Speed Threshold = 100
Offside = 99
False Start = 50 (At 99 there were too many)
Holding = 99
Face Mask = 99
Defensive PI = 99
Offensive PI = on
Kick Catch Interference = on
Illegal Block in the Back = 99
Intentional Grounding = on
Roughing Passer = 50 (This is right on)
Roughing Kicker = on (I have seen the kicker roughed or ran into plenty of times and it doesnt get called)
Running Into the Kicker = on
Illegal Contact = on
Auto Subs (Sub in/Sub out)
QB 60/80
HB 84/85
WR 74/85
FB/TE 74/85
OL 60/80
DT 82/85
DE 80/85
LB 78/85
CB 76/85
S 74/85
Any setting left out is not important in my opinion and can be user preference.
Breaking Down the Sliders
Skill Level and Min Player Speed Threshold
The game difficulty and player speed were important to get right so I am starting here. I started on All-Pro based on other peoples suggestions, but even my wife thought the players looked funny when running downfield, they looked like there were moving too fast and very gamy. Going into to practice mode, you can actually test players speed by running fly routes when controlling the QB. Place the ball on your own 10 yard line, hike the ball and let them run past the 50 before taking a dive with your QB. Go to instant replay and record the 40 time with your phone.
In Pro Skill Level with a Min Player Speed Threshold of 0
When you turn the game down to Pro difficulty the player strides when running look normal. Tyrek Hill, the fastest player in the game with 99 speed 99 acceleration ran a 4.34 40-yard dash. Wearing pads and a helmet and not running in a perfect straight line that is about as close as you can get to the real thing. SO then I took the ratings for the slowest player in the league and edited a tight end on my roster. Then I substituted him into the wide receiver position and recorded his 40 time. He ran an abysmal 10.2 second 40. The slowest players in the NFL are the lineman and the slowest lineman runs about a 6.6 second 40.
I then tried the same thing with a Min Player Speed Threshold of 100. Tyrek Hill ran the same time but the slowest lineman ran a 7.2 second 40. Right on the mark with pads, helmet, and not running a straight line. So that is how I achieved a speed parity of 100.
Quarter Length, accelerated clock, minimum play clock, and injury slider.
Lets face it, injuries are not right in a played game. The injuries tend to favor only a few positions, mainly lineman. And another flaw that I noticed is the clock stoppage on an injury. In the NFL the only time the game clock stops on injury is in the last two minutes of each half. Otherwise, the game clock resumes once the player is off the field and the offense is in the huddle. If you have the injury slider turned up you are going to get way more stopped clocks and too many total plays with 15 minute quarters.
The best way I have found to get injuries is to use these methods explained in other threads on these forums here and here. You can simply super fast sim a week here and there by taking control of a team before the game and Play the Moment with the injury slider at 100. This works for getting a good distribution of injuries and is what I use now. I do leave the game injury slider at 10 just to get the occasional injury throughout the game. And the number of plays is right with a 10 second minimum play clock. Plus, you get the occasional delay of game penalty when the quarterback tries to motion a player and doesnt get the snap in time.
Run/Pass Ratio
This is determined by the gameplan in the playbook. The default playbooks predominantly call too many pass plays. In fact, the only playbooks that have the correct run and pass ratio are TEN, BAL, SF, and LAC when comparing them to their NFL teams for the 2023 season. The only way to get the other teams right is to edit their playbooks gameplan and save it as a custom playbook. Then you have to use the Play the Moment trick described here along with the two controllers to set that custom playbook for the CPU team. I have created new custom offensive run-balanced playbooks for each team and shared them online. Search for user thirteensunrays.
Fatigue and Sub in / Sub Out
I was using progressive fatigue but made it to a playoff game and most of the cpu players were fatigued. I turned this off because of the mismanagement of the cpu teams. I like the rotation with the settings that I have.
Gameplay Sliders
Another reason I like the Pro setting, is that the most important slider, QB accuracy is perfect at 50. And most of the other sliders arent to far off 50. With the exception of Pass Coverage and Def Reaction Time.
QB Accuracy
Like I said before QB accuracy is right on at 50. The play calling in Madden is a little different than the NFL. You get less swing passes and wr screens in Madden and more balls thrown downfield than in the NFL. This leads to a little higher Yards per Catch and lower completion percentage.
QBA%
SIM 64.14%
NFL 64.78%
Yards Per Pass Attempt
SIM 7.21
NFL 7.10
Yards Per Catch
SIM 11.24
NFL 10.96
Pass Blocking
This one has taken me the longest to nail down and I am still testing it. At 43 I was getting too many sacks which is shown below. I am now at 47. I use sack percentage, not number of sacks, that way it depends on the number of pass attempts.
SACK%
SIM 7.20%
NFL 6.21%
WR Catching
I have been at 36 for a while now. It leads to the occasional wide open drop and makes it more difficult to catch in coverage. I have tested at 35 and it leads to too many open drops.
DROP%
SIM 6.85%
NFL 6.77%
Run Blocking
To determine the right run block slider you need to determine how many yards the runners are getting before a defender makes contact. You can do this by subtracting the total rushing yards from the yards after contact per attempt.
Yards Before Contact/ATT
SIM 2.49
NFL 2.48
Fumbles
I am almost positive the tackle slider also affects the number of fumbles, the higher the tackle slider the higher the fumble chance. This took a while to get the right balance. The number you see below was at a fumble setting of 34, I just recently raised it to 36. I noticed the offensive players sometimes dont go for the ball, giving the defense a better chance at recovery and even a scoop and score. It is better to have less fumbles to even this out.
FUM
SIM 1.26
NFL 1.20
Pass Defense Reaction Time
The name of this slider is deceiving. It should be called defense reaction time. Because it effects the running game too. This slider basically controls how quickly the defense reacts to all plays. In previous testing I had this set as low as 15 with the run block at 0. On run plays the average yards before contact were too high with the former setting. I increased the number and realized that this was affecting the run game. This must be set at maximum in pro so that the defenders react to the pass and run as they should.
Pass Coverage
In pro skill lever this slider must be set at max to get the proper coverage. Although the pass defense percentage is lower in this Simulation vs the NFL, I think that it because of the way the stat is recorded. There are times when a pass broken up by the defender contacting the receiver and the defender doesnt get credited for the pass defense.
Receiving Yards after Catch
Sim 3.82
NFL is around 4
Pass Defense Percentage
SIM 7.24%
NFL 8.96%
Interceptions
Occasionally you have the 5-interception game with this slider here. In my testing there were three quarterbacks who had 5 picks. They were elite quarterbacks, which is not very realistic. Josh Allen, Jalen Hurst, and Patrick Mahomes. But the average is right on.
Sim 2.36%
NFL 2.35%
Tackling
There is only one statistic that I use to determine the tackle slider. Yards after contact. Luckily the game does a good job of tracking this as you can see with the next generation stats popup in game. The average below was with the tackle slider at 37, so I bumped it to 38.
Yards after contact/ATT
Sim 1.88
NFL 1.85
