I think your mis-reading him. He's just thinking of a game that he can use as reference. Nothing wrong with that. I understand your point though that those guys needs to be the innovators and be the game others look towards.
However, there's no game I can think off top of my head. EA NHL kinda trys this adaptive AI idea, but that's when a player keeps doing the same thing over and over again (overall defense is as bad as CFL defense). However, it does carry over games so if your in a playoff series, the opposing team will adapt to your play style over the series. Madden should at least have that.