After finding the most underrated offensive players and most underrated defensive players in Madden 26, it became apparent that EA focuses more on updating and improving offensive realism way more than the defensive side. We already knew that offense is the more marketable and better-liked phase of the game for the general audience, and has been since the beginning of modern-day football. What isn’t apparent, however, is how this cycle of player disinterest and developer neglect has affected the game’s defensive side. That’s what I want to find out in this article.
Is defense in Madden 26 still an accurate depiction and simulation of NFL defenses, or has it been overpowered or underpowered relative to real football? My best guess going into this experiment is that Madden had underpowered defenses to make the games more offensively exciting for players. Still, I was curious to see if that was really the case.
This experiment was set up to compare Madden simulated defenses to real-life NFL defenses using simulation settings. Of course, your experience will change based on your user ability/sliders, and whether you change the play style settings to arcade, but I wanted to see if true simulated stats using the simulation play style were accurate. To do this, I simulated the 2025 season three times and compared the stats of league leaders in each simulation to the real 2025 season.
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I started by simply looking at the best teams from each simulation based on team defensive statistics, then individual defensive statistical leaders, and finally offensive leaders. Here were the results.
Best Defensive Team Stats
Total Yards Allowed
- Sim 3 (Steelers) – 4600 total yards allowed
- Sim 2 (Ravens) – 4622 total yards allowed
- Sim 1 (Raiders) – 4626 total yards allowed
- Real 2025 (Texans) – 4713 total yards allowed
Pass Yards Allowed
- Real 2025 (Bills) – 2668 pass yards allowed
- Sim 1 (Seahawks) – 3109 pass yards allowed
- Sim 3 (Panthers) – 3156 pass yards allowed
- Sim 2 (Lions) – 3202 pass yards allowed
Rush Yards Allowed
- Sim 3 (Ravens) – 1154 rush yards allowed
- Sim 2 (Ravens) – 1199 rush yards allowed
- Sim 1 (Raiders) – 1246 rush yards allowed
- Real 2025 (Jaguars) – 1455 rush yards allowed
Points Allowed per Game
- Sim 2 (Patriots) – 16.1 points allowed per game
- Sim 3 (Ravens) – 16.4 points allowed per game
- Sim 1 (Raiders) – 16.5 points allowed per game
- Real 2025 (Seahawks) – 17.2 points allowed per game
Sacks
- Real 2025 (Broncos) – 68 sacks
- Sim 3 (Steelers) – 60 sacks
- Sim 1 (Chargers) – 58 sacks
- Sim 2 (Jaguars) – 57 sacks
Fumble Recoveries
- Sim 1 (Jaguars) – 14 fumble recoveries
- Sim 2 (Jaguars) – 12 fumble recoveries
- Sim 3 (Steelers) – 12 fumble recoveries
- Real 2025 (Vikings) – 12 fumble recoveries
Interceptions
- Real 2025 (Bears) – 23 interceptions
- Sim 1 (Bills) – 22 interceptions
- Sim 2 (Steelers) – 19 interceptions
- Sim 3 (Chiefs) – 17 interceptions
Takeaway
In the Madden sims, defenses had a much easier time stopping the run than in the real NFL. In the real NFL, defenses were able to stop the passing game at a much higher rate than the Madden sim teams. Secondaries seem to appear much weaker in Madden than in real life, while front sevens happen to be stronger in Madden. Overall, however, it equaled out to Madden actually having stronger defenses overall in both allowing yards and points than in the real NFL. So, in terms of points and yards, it appears that defenses are actually overrated in Madden compared to their actual ability in real life.
When it comes to explosive defensive plays like sacks and interceptions, however, Madden’s simulated defenses are actually underrated compared to the real NFL.
Best Individual Defensive Stats
Tackles
- Real 2025 (Jordyn Brooks) – 183 tackles
- Sim 1 (Jamien Sherwood) – 183 tackles
- Sim 2 (Jamien Sherwood) – 179 tackles
- Sim 3 (Kyzir White) – 169 tackles
Tackles for Loss
- Real 2025 (Myles Garrett) – 33 TFLs
- Sim 3 (Micah Parsons) – 25 TFLs
- Sim 2 (Milton Williams) – 23 TFLs
- Sim 1 (Sheldon Rankins) – 21 TFLs
Sacks
- Real 2025 (Myles Garrett) – 23 sacks
- Sim 2 (Maxx Crosby) – 19.5 sacks
- Sim 1 (Khalil Mack) – 19 sacks
- Sim 3 (Travon Walker) – 17.5 sacks
Interceptions
- Real 2025 (Kevin Byard) – 7 interceptions
- Sim 1 (Taron Johnson) – 7 interceptions
- Sim 3 (Jalen Ramsey) – 6 interceptions
- Sim 2 (Christian Gonzalez) – 5 interceptions
Takeaway
Consistently across the board, the real NFL produces individual performances that are more elite than you will see in Madden simulations. I expect that this is because EA wants the individual player to use defensive players to get those elite-level stats. They understand that it’s fairly easy for individual statistics on a user’s team to get out of hand on the defensive side of the ball when the player is effectively using them, and they are likely making the simulated stats weaker to make up for that fact. It does, however, make for somewhat unrealistic stats.
Best Offensive Team Stats
Total Yards
- Sim 2 (Rams) – 6946 total yards
- Real 2025 (Rams) – 6709 total yards
- Sim 3 (Chiefs) – 6604 total yards
- Sim 1 (Falcons) – 6382 total yards
Passing Yards
- Sim 2 (Bengals) – 4962 pass yards
- Sim 3 (Bengals) – 4957 passing yards
- Sim 1 (Bengals) – 4713 pass yards
- Real 2025 (Rams) – 4557 pass yards
Rushing Yards
- Sim 3 (Ravens) – 2870 rushing yards
- Real 2025 (Bills) – 2714 rush yards
- Sim 1 (Ravens) – 2632 rush yards
- Sim 2 (Ravens) – 2507 rush yards
Points Per Game
- Real 2025 (Rams) – 30.5 points per game
- Sim 2 (Rams) – 29 points per game
- Sim 3 (Chiefs) – 28.3 points per game
- Sim 1 (Bills) – 26.8 points per game
Takeaway
What’s interesting when looking at the offensive stats is that they don’t necessarily match the defensive stats in this experiment. While the simulated pass defenses struggled to match up to real-life pass defense, we actually saw top-end passing offenses in Madden dominate top-end pass offenses in real life. We also saw the sims be a little bit weaker in terms of the top-end run games compared to real life, which is also in contradiction to what we saw with top-end defenses.
However, when it comes to yards and points, we generally saw the offensive stats confirm what the defensive stats showed: defenses are typically better in Madden than in real life.
