EA Sports is beginning to reveal some of the upgrades we can expect to see in the next Madden, and re-designed catching intelligence is near the top of the list. Ian Cummings, the game's creative director, recently sat down with our friends at IGN to detail the receiver transformation.
"We have specifically tuned and added support to make it so receivers wait for the ball on a curl and have awareness for the first down," Cummings said. "Also, receivers will now be working to catch the ball in stride on crossing routes so they don't end up slowing down or losing yardage."
The developers have created what they call a Catch Debugging Tool to make digital WRs understand the boundaries of the field and become aware of where the first down is. No more running out of bounds a yard short on a crucial third-down. And with out-of-bounds awareness and new catch animations, Madden players will even get to see receivers make dramatic, NFL-style, toes-barely-in-bounds catches.
Madden NFL 11 is scheduled for release on the Xbox 360, PS3, and Wii in August.
Sharkey says: Nothing worse than your receiver running an end zone route out-of-bounds. These changes have been a long-time-coming in Madden, and I look forward to seeing how the results improve play. 
