I never played Backbreaker but just watched a video of some gameplay. I think that would definitely be a step in the right direction. While most of the hits do look very realistic and organic, there were several that looked well worse than the canned animations we're used to (in my opinion), typically when a second defender came into contact with the play or when someone was hit mid-move.
Also saw a lot of the things Madden critics complain about (unrealistic spin move, stopping on a dime, no real "weight" to the players when running and changing direction).
It would be cool if Madden acquired that technology and then expanded on it and made improvements. Honestly I'd be surprised if they haven't at least explored that option, but with that said I doubt they ultimately went in that direction.
I wouldn't expect to see a full fledged physics system until next gen though, and I would hope they've had a team tasked with developing the infrastructure for that ahead of time but that's probably just me being way too optimistic.
Didn't mean to stray so far off the topic of this thread though, while the "every pixel re-invented" line makes it seem like we're in for a whole new system, I'd bet it's just another re-branding of an upgraded version of our current system. Which I'm fine with for now