I agree.
I feel this is last true year of this generation of sports games. With next gen consoles slated for holiday 2020, companies are going to develop games with next gen in mind. You either going to see developers go all out and have next gen version be a graphical upgrade. Or you'll see a gap year", where they just implement back of box features to sell games, while they focus heavily on next gen 2021 version.
My hope for next gen sports games is they focus on gameplay and depth not just visuals and cosmetics. With more powerful engines, there will be a lot more resources developers can use to make the games a lot better. I just hope they don't focus that all that extra power on visuals. Everyone will expect a graphical leap, but I want that power to be used for gameplay and depth. I want to see AI for games to be a lot more intelligent and adaptive. I want the gameplay to be more responsive and smooth. Season modes for all games really need to get back to the PS2/Xbox version where there was vast amount of depth compared to past 2 gens. But I do wonder how much better graphically can these sports games get? Besides accurate colors and lighting, what can we expect. I say improved weather effects, improved player models, more photo-realistic faces(less cartoonish), more extra sport-specific details, improved crowds. I think those are the given. One thing I really want is more accurate player to field of play ratio. It feels in most games the fields and courts feels smaller to make players feel life size. If they can have accurate player to field of play ratio, it'll improved spacing for all games