I remember back when they used to have that, at least in individual games, if a QB was doing terrible (like throwing 5 picks) they would put the back up in.
Also, anyone remember position battles? When guys were close overall wise in the preseason there was a "position battle" thing going on and whoever did the better statstically the CPU were reorder the depth charts and start whoever had the better preseason. It wasn't perfect but at least it's better than them just starting the higher ovr guy no matter what