That's not free market for the games industry, the consumers, and its developers at all. When competition is hindered by artificial means (in this case exclusive licensing) it isn't a completely free market. Yes the NFL is free to do business this way but by removing competition the game industry no longer operates in a free market for producing football games. We all know that games that don't use player names and real teams won't sell.
Whenever someone is locked out from competing with another company, that is not a free market anymore. In a real free market developers would be able to license the NFL names and logos for their games as well and the consumers would choose the best one according to each game's merits and the sales figures would show which one was the favored title overall. If the competing games turned out to be lower quality or sell less then so be it. At least we would actually have a choice and probably get better football games as a result. We had this before and it was much better. The NFL is just too greedy for their own good anymore and that's what they wanted, someone to pay them big money for the license. Neither EA or the NFL really care about the quality of the product when there is no other option anymore. If someone wants a football game they have to buy Madden and the NFL gets paid no matter what.
It's crap, the games have been crap for years, and will continue to be crap until there is some competition to light a fire under their ass.
Some examples of poor quality in Madden
Pre Determined Fumble recovery including the ball jumping from the ground and sticks to the defender's hand, clipping through the arm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Co-qVJ4-UOY
Synchronized receiver and defender making for awkward looking interception
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFnAu0Z2C8E
obvious tackling Issues
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l9TsoB-K4dE
poor AI and motion shifting
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qwdtx6Dc7k0