My own observation: The common thing in the matches with high pass counts is that the teams play with the tactics with 5 defenders. Especially if both teams use five defenders, high pass counts possibility becomes even stronger. If SI officials want to examine it, they can check with this in mind.
Note: I checked my pre-update saves, although not as much as now, there are examples where the defenders went up to 150, 180 passes in matches that tactics with 5 defenders in use.