But Madden
already works in the general case, it works well enough for plenty of people to be happy with it, log countless hours playing online head-to-head / online team-up and spend hundreds of dollars playing Ultimate Team. People by-and-large _are_ satisfied with the game. These people who are satisfied want new ways to interact with the game in next year's version, new tools they can use to control the outcome of the game.
If WR-DB jostling is introduced with a new control mechanic accompanying it as part of the introduction of a 7-on-7 online multiplayer mode, then you'll get the average user to care, because he'll need to understand the interactions and tools to succeed when playing as a wide receiver in this new gameplay mode. On its own as a set of animations the AI performs based on ratings checks which the user can't influence in any active or meaningful way, it doesn't grab the attention of any user who doesn't frequent this forum because this user will never meaningfully interact with the refactored AI routines.
To boil it down to two sentences: with the average console video game user, the idea of sim gameplay is secondary to the notion of interactive competitive multiplayer. It is more important that a game has engaging user gameplay mechanics than it is that it is realistic with respect to things outside of the user's direct influence.