Can anyone explain why the AI immediately re-signs all players in the final year of their contract to lengthy deals when a team is abandoned midseason? I've seen four and five year deals with massive bonuses to 33 year old players near retirement who'll never play it out. I've avoided picking up teams knowing they'd be stuck in dead cap **** for several years. Seems like it would put AI teams at a serious disadvantage, while the human run teams would be able to manage their cap better and continue being more competitive. Just curious.

I agree.
Add to that madness AI teams do not start every player. In fact, the AI often benches better players for ****.
Or takes the #1RB and only plays him as a punt returner.
Just fixing simple Artificial Negligence errors in the current code such as depth chart, the above resigning of players over 9 yrs exp, the fumble recover bug and the negative yardage bugs (amoung many) in the box score which are then transferred to player stats and impact attribute development and thus contract monies...
There are plenty of user interface issues (playoff bug) that need to be fixed in 4.5 before the incredibly trashy 4.6 game version is released.
That is this week's rant, thanks for attending.

Because the MFN AI is missing the "i".

This AI never makes a smart decision about anything (contracts, draft picks, playcalls, etc.).