What avoid sack mechanic are you talking about, that they took out? The break sack animation? That's still in there, as is the scramble mechanic to drop the passing icons and become a runner...it's (hold) R2/right trigger.
Did they have another mechanic in the past I'm forgetting?
The animations can be painfully long, but they don't feel quite as much of a locked-in trap as they did last year. This year, I've actually survived a break-sack animation to scramble or complete a (non throw-out-of-sack) pass.