Excellent example on the Tough as Nails ability that distinguished QB's. In Madden 2010 all QB's are Tough as Nails because they are all accurate even though the defender is in their face and they are spinning while throwing the football off of their back foot. I have seen this way too much in online games it sucks. I have literally replayed countless number of times the highlights where I have a defender in the QB's face and rather than running through the QB an animation check occurs and the defender slides to the side to tackle the QB, but by doing that the QB is able to get off that spin off the back foot throw for an accurate pass.
The animation is not the problem, the RESULT IS. Secondly, this game could use a mega does of procedural awareness for WR's. You should be able to throw the ball any time during a WR's route, but he should not be aware of the throw at all times during the route. Now should user control be able to save someone here? That's the question.
Also, if they are not going to program better DB behavior and ball skills for man coverage, why not just remove 2 Man Under from the game? Nobody uses it. Everyone will use 2 Man Press. We use man press to cover up the lack of DB Ball skills and the lack of options of telling our DB's how to play. What they need to do is do it on a scale. CB's with 90 + man coverage have a set of animations and behaviors to play the WR and the ball that corners 80 - 89 man coverage do not. But corners 80-89 have a set of animations that 70-79 man coverage do not ect., Then go back and do the same thing for zone. There is just too much generalizing in the game to where guys up and down the board do too much of the same thing. They need to tighten the ratings.
When I get home I will post some examples of how I see this working out.