Some NFL stats for real life stats with sliders.

[mjhyankees]

Just wanted to post some stats that I think we should use if we want real life results. Of course you are free to do as you wish to have fun. For me I want the numbers to reflect real life as much as possible. I've consistently checked NFL stats to arrive at these numbers. I may be wrong and would love to be corrected on any of the stats, but please back it up (show me the NFL stat in other words).

1. Total plays per game: About 120....maybe as high as 130+ for a game with both teams passing 40+ times, or alittle lower for the ground games that run the ball 35-40 times. To find number add pass att, rush att + sacks. Don't count special teams. See below for an update on this.

2. Pass completion %: The best QB's are near 70% (65-70%)...very rare to find a guy go over 70 for a season. Worst are just under 60% (55-60), with the occasional lower one (but they don't last in the NFL much if they are 50% or lower). Average QB is just over 60%. I generally from game to game like to see the QB comp. % just over 60%. Obviously there are some great games (near 80) or terrible games (near or below 50). But if you are playing with all 32 teams (as I do) you should see after a few weeks a bell curve with top QB's near 70 and weak ones near 55 and the rest in the middle (60-64).

3. Most RB's average 4+ yards per carry. Some are below and the best ones are near or over 5 but again imagine a bell curve from about 3.7 to 5.7, with 4.3 somewhere in the middle.

4. Average sacks per game: 2-3 per team.

5. Average picks per game: 1 per QB....again the better ones will end the season around 8 picks give or take, the worst around 20 and most averaging about a pick per game.

6. Most punters average over 40 ypK.....the best may be higher and the more directional guys maybe just under 40. KO guys usually kick the ball inside the 10...only a few consistently put it on the goal line or beyond.

7. Most returners will get it out to the 25-30 yard line. Some are more and some less. A KO TD return happens 1-2 times per WEEK in the LEAGUE. Meaning unless you have Devin Hester or someone like that, expect to MAYBE return 1 or 2 KO for TD's....some teams don't have any returns for TD's.

8. NFL receivers drop 1-2 passes per game as a TEAM.....obviously in bad weather or on a bad day you could see 5 or so, but generally they don't drop many (drops don't count when the guy get's clobbered while catching the ball....a drop is when the guy drops the ball without being hit).

9. Most #1 RB's average around 20 carries per game (some workhorses will average closer to 25 but that's only 1-2 guys in the league).

10. Most QB's throw about 30-35 passes per game. Some pass happy teams may be closer to 40 and the ground and pound guys may be closer to 25.

11. Penalties: A range of 3-7 per game. Some bad teams are consistently on the high end here and the most disciplined teams on the lower end...again a bell curve. Some games are worse than others.

12. NFL teams average about 340 ypg total. AGain a bell curve with the best O's near or over 400 and the worst in the 270 range.

13. NFL teams in general average 22-23 points per game on offense (yes counting defensive scores as well). The bell curve here is usually a low around 15 and a high around 30. The D numbers are roughly the same. I use 45 total points as a threshold to evaluate my games. About half the games should have 45 combined points or less.

Hope this helps....I'll add to this if I think of more. I try to get my sliders to reflect these kinds of outcomes.

Here are the new findings for other areas of the game. Hopefully it will help people like me who try to get the most realistic results out of their games.

14. Plays per game - The median number for plays per game (per team) was 64. The range was from 57-69. I believe the old "pass attempts + run attempts + sacks = total plays" is still the formula of choice to find out what you got in your game.

15. Yards per play. I find this one intriguing. In my madden sliders I strive to get numbers like the ones posted above but I failed to factor in that a total yards number that seems out of whack could very well be because of one team having alot more plays than another or too many total plays in that game. So I'm going to try to use this stat as my benchmark for yardage:

Median: 5.3 yards per play. Range 4-6 yards per play. So if i'm getting games or team averages of 9 yards per play that's way out of whack.

16. Penalties per game per team: Median is 5. Range is from 4-8 per game per team.

17. Penalty yards per game: This is especially useful I believe for figuring out how many of the penalties were holding vs. false start. Now because of pass interference and such it may not be that accurate a benchmark, but I think it will give an idea:
42 yards per game is the median. Range was from 36-82. Coupled with the range of # of penalties called I think it's safe to say that holding penalties make up the majority of penalties. Using the range I calculated that the range 8-10 yards per penalty. I'd guess that for every false start there are about 4 holding penalties base on this. May not be spot on here, but hey, close enough for rock and roll right?

18. Fumbles: Median 1.5 per game ( or 3 for every 2 games). Range: .5 (one every other game) to 2 per game.

19. On a given sunday, one team will rack up over 400 total yards in roughly every other game.


Hope this helps. I got the stats off of cbssports.com but it's possible my math was off as I was rushing a bit. Any feedback is appreciated, good or bad.

[phillysouljah]

I posted this in a slider thread a few months ago. It is a response to those who misinterpret what a 4.3 ypc average for a RB means (ie- they say RB's in Madden get stuffed repeatedly then break off a big run and it's 'unrealisitc'):

One thing to keep in mind though is that yards per carry (as in a mean) does not correspond to median yardage.

Check it out:
http://www.pro-football-reference.com/blog/?p=1499

Quote:

In modern times, most RBs have a median carry length of three yards. I suspect that's been the case for the majority of RBs for a long time. LenDale White and his 3.9 YPC last season? Median rush of 3 yards. Adrian Peterson and his 4.8 YPC? Median rush of 3 yards.

What does this mean? What circumstances could lead to someone having a 5.0 YPC but only a median rush of 3 yards?

For example this series of runs:
-2, 0, 3, 4, 20

would produce a 5.0 ypc average but a median run of only 3 yards.

This also means that the difference between an Adrian Peterson and a Lendale White is what we already know from watching the games... AP breaks off big runs and Lendale White doesn't. It's not that AP is necessarily more consistent in turning out 4.5-5.0 yard gains... He could be less consistent than White but make up for it by breaking off a few long runs.

To reiterate, whether a pro bowler or a bench warmer, the median carry is around the same and fairly low at ~3.0. Big runs are what sets apart the AP's from the Lendale White's.'

Consider this as well:

Quote:

When talking about big gains, it's hard to ignore Chris Johnson, the league's ultimate breakaway back. Johnson had runs of 91, 89, and 85 yards last year, plus a 57-yarder, a 52-yarder, and a smattering of 30+ and 40+ yarders. He totaled 693 yards on his 14 carries of over 30 yards. To put that in perspective, he would have finished 15th in the AFC in rushing based solely on those 14 carries, ahead of guys like Ronnie Brown and Willis McGahee. Take away Johnson's top 14 runs, and his 352-1313-3.7 statline looks much more mortal, though still quite good. Even without his highlight-reel runs, Johnson can be a productive 1,000-yard back, which is good news to those of us who will be taking him first or second in a fantasy draft. Of course, Johnson's long runs won't go away this year, but it's unlikely that he'll have three 80+ yarders, either. Cut his big-play yardage in half, and you still have a tremendous player.

It's amazing to think that Chris Johnson had 693 yards on a mere 14 carries but that's what his long runs over the course of the season amounted to! Notice how if you take away those long runs, his ridiculous 5.6 ypc average plummets to a mere 3.7 ypc average.

So on 352 carries (96% of his total carries) he only averaged 3.7 yards! It was on a mere 14 carries (average of 49.5 ypc) that he bumped his average all the way up to 5.6 ypc!

I can't stress this enough. 96% of Chris Johnson's carries resulted in an average of 3.7 ypc which is Lendale White territory and would be considered very pedestrian! He skyrocketed to 5.6 ypc off only 4% of his total carries.

[mjhyankees]

That is an excellent point....I didn't figure that into my stats.....I do intuitively consider this in the sense that I wasn't happy with sliders where a guy gets stuffed for one yard 10 plays in a row and brakes off a 50 yarders to go 11 carries and 60 yards.

[phillysouljah]

I hope your thread is a success, because I think this is an important counter-point to what I see people brought up in virtually ever slider set.

I decided to check the play-by-play for an NFL game from last week. Granted, one data point does not a trend make but it gives you an idea of how a typical RB's day goes in the NFL.

I decided to pick a 100+ yard rusher from Week 16 and went with Chicago's Matt Forte, who is neither a powerback nor a skat back but a guy in between. Forte had some surprising room against one of the league's better run D's, the Jets.

He finished with 19 carries for 113 yards. Never dare think that that 5.9 yards per carry average means he was consistently picking up 6 yard gains!

Here are the yardage from every carry he had during that game:

4, 5, 0, 3, 2, 8, 22, 2, 3, 1, 6, 12, 32, 0, 2, 8, 0, 1, 2

Notice it. Seriously, guys, notice!

Even though he averaged a very high 5.9 average, 11 of his 19 carries went for 3 yards or less! And was stuffed for no gain 3 times!

In order by distance

0, 0, 0, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 6, 8, 8, 12, 22, 32

Median carry was 3 yards.

My above post is confirmed in the case of Matt Forte last week. Though he averaged 5.9 ypc, his median carry was only 3 yards which is typical for every RB to have ever played professional football.

[phillysouljah]

Quote: Originally Posted by mjhyankees

That is an excellent point....I didn't figure that into my stats.....I do intuitively consider this in the sense that I wasn't happy with sliders where a guy gets stuffed for one yard 10 plays in a row and brakes off a 50 yarders to go 11 carries and 60 yards.

Yeah but that's my point! You should be happy! That is realistic!

That is why I hope this thread gets noticed. There's a fundamental misunderstanding of how an RB should play in Madden. Everyone thinks he should be plugging away with 4-5 yard gains! NO! Not at all!

Scream it from the rooftops! If Madden is to be realistic, RB's should get short gains almost all the time but break off an occasional big one.

As much football as everyone watches, it's amazing how no one here seems to know this.

[audible45]

Quote: Originally Posted by phillysouljah

Yeah but that's my point! You should be happy! That is realistic! That is why I hope this thread gets noticed. There's a fundamental misunderstanding of how an RB should play in Madden. Everyone thinks he should be plugging away with 4-5 yard gains! NO! Not at all!

Very intriguing, indeed. You have some very good ideas that could really help all of us do the impossible: make a realistic slider set. This thread DOES have to get noticed and more importantly go into depth for a lot more realism. to both of you.

[fistofrage]

Another thing is look at the NFL. Now I don't have the stats, but look at how many times a team was rewarded in real life for sticking with the run. All of a sudden in the 4th quarter, the RB starts breakinng off 8 to 10 yard chunks as the defense tires.

Problem is, sometimes a team has to abandon the run because they get down too much at halftime or whatever circumstances dictate it. When the run gets abandoned and every team does it at some point, you will see a stat line like 20 carries for 39 yards or 15 carries for 24 yards. Point is, if you only play 1 half of football with a set of sliders and determine they aren't realistic because you are always getting shutdown.....They may be very realistic because you are getting shut down by well rested D Linemen.

[phillysouljah]

Let's go with another 100 yard rusher from Week 16 and see how he plays out. Adrian Peterson has 22 carries for 118 yards. That's a 5.4 ypc, so again, fairly high. What were the carries of arguably the best back in football?

5, 2, 4, -1, 3, 15, 23, 1, -1 (overturned by penalty so not counted), 1, 18, 9, 3, 7, -4, -1, 27, 1, 1, 2, 2, 0, 2.

Even with the best back in football, of his 22 carries, 14 went for 3 yards of less. 63% of the time AP got the ball, he had less than 3 yards yet still averaged 5.4 ypc!

Not only that, but he was downright stuffed for no gain or NEGATIVE yards 4 times and would've been 5 if not for a penalty on the Eagles.

Again, sorted by distance:

-4, -1, -1, 0, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4, 5, 7, 9, 15, 18, 23, 27

AP, though he averaged 5.4 ypc, had a median carry of only 2 yards!