This is just an educated guess so I could be wrong, but wouldnt it be possible for players to join a team for a day or two just to ruin them financially and keep low quality players on the roster, then abandon and move on to another team? Could this be repeated until half of the teams are not competitive and so the player could switch back to their real team and have a better shot?

I only question this after navigating and searching for hours for an abandoned team in all of the custom leagues. From my research, it seems that most abandoned teams in almost every league are crushed with millions of $ over the cap, most of the cap already used up for next season, and also stamped down with dead cap. Furthermore, you would think these teams would have more quality players because most, or all, of the money is used up. This is mot the case as these teams are mostly filled with medium to low quality players. Anyone else have a thought on this?

Phalun

you raised a very important question .... wonder how JDB will answer this.

When a player abandons a team, isn't he barred from re-entering that league for a certain amount of time?

30 days unless league admin removes the block

Well, I wonder why the CPU controlled teams get so jacked up financially then .

If you ever figure out what the AI does logically, keep it to yourself. We wont be able to handle it .. LOL

especially if SKYNET we have been told to watch for is actually MFN in diguise where it learns everything about us then slowly but surely takes over the world without us noticing until its too late.

It's not really a mystery. The computer offers expensive short-sighted deal to any current players with expiring contracts after the owner abandons the team - both at the end of the current season as well as again during FA when the next season starts. (That should really be modified and would help a lot!!) Then because AI can't trade it ends up keeping all of it's draft picks and often cuts the wrong players to get the roster back to 53.

Those two actions are enough to put most teams in dire straits in just one preseason.

and sabotaging as you've described it wouldn't work due to the 30-day waiting period to rejoin any league you've left.

The AI model for defaults, fa signing and draft are probably the same since the game started . Ai could build a roster and stay under, but it was extremely easy for users to hold on to alot of great players as no one ever made it to fa in an all user league.

Players salaries have been upped since forcing guys in to FA to be taken at high prices. Renegotiated contracts are moderated by the previous years FAS. Playing it safe the AI will let great players go and resign mediocre players to fill out rosters . Where I will keep those great players and let the mediocre test the market . Filling out rosters later

This older model is not bad but if defaults were current to the code running perhaps new users and the cpu could at least select better (faster) players when drafting or signing. Speed has always killed in this game. It took me several seasons to figure out the value of speed and not acceleration or technical skill . Or the lack of agility .

Any improvements to code has made speed and blitzes less valuable in which makes defaults look better. So by 1.0 I bet the ai will get there act together on way or another ; )

To sabotage a league would take a methodical approach in an inactive league , but why. I prefer to go in and fix a team then bounce. That process could be slow as well which is the main problem .