Some people made the case for Madden... Over in Europe the PS2 was for some players defined by the FIFA vs Pro Evo battle. This was the golden age of PES, reaching it's apex in that generation with PES6.
The general theme still being that PES is the soul and FIFA is the skin of football (sorry, Soccer).
Big sports games are not as enticing to stick on the list I guess. They release them so often that highlighting a whole series means a dozen games in a generation. You're not going to play them all. And because they keep getting made and don't get worse, you normally just play the brand newest one.