After reading the OS blog about "working in the ...industry", this doesn't surprise me at all, but your point is well taken.
I wonder if sometimes, even the guys on the dev crew, they watch the game on screen so much that they lose track of "reality" in terms of physics. I mean if all you see all week long at work is Madden running, then it is possible that your perspective, relative to actual NFL footage, gets jacked up.
If I were in charge of Madden's development, there would be lots of NFL footage running on screens all over the place, so that it would be a grounding effect and an easy thing to find examples of what they are shooting for...