As someone was saying earlier, it's a trade mark of madden since probably the ps1 days. People are so used to having a stonewall line and dropping back 10-15 away from it to see the defenders that break free that to do it any other way would create a huge backlash from long time madden players.
I'm sure Clint did work on it. I feel pretty confident what you see is what you get tho too.