Trust me when I say, you can only test so much in house, with small sample size of people.
The games are much, much bigger than they have EVER BEEN. Do more things, etc.
Once a game hits, your sample size goes from 20+ (estimated) to 100,00+ people. There is going to be way more variables and scenarios to run into.
Just be thankful we have patches now a days, back in the day you just dealt with game breaking bugs, and no way to fix them.
I also think SCEA-SD is some of the best in the biz at delivering not only feedback, but great fixes in their patches. And this game truly is one of the least buggy out of all the sports franchises, and does much more in it, than same said franchises.