It's far more likely (and business as usual) for EA's business development to measure Respawn's potential, offer a buyout proposal prior to Titanfall 2's launch and finalize it shortly afterwards.

You get a much better price if a company is broke and desperate than when they are happily independent. I doubt they had any desire to sell until situations made selling of closing shop the only way forward.

I don't think it was necessarily ill will that caused them to tank Respawn and buy them desperate and cheap, but that's what happened regardless. They tanked Respawn and bought them desperate and cheap. It's possible that it was incompetence that got them lucky as hell, but to completely write off the possibility of ill intent is silly.