Maybe the first day of the season should be for computer teams to resign their own players. This way if a current owner leaves his team but doesnt decide to resign anyone the computer team will have that 1 day to do so. This could help in teams getting watered down because of not signing good players before they hit the FA market.

I understand it will cause another added to the season.

I believe this is already occurring for the computer players during the end of the season simulation.

Yes, there are a couple of ways this is happening:

1) If an owner has abandoned his team (hasn't logged in for 14 days) at the end-of season stage the team reverts to AI and any players in their last year are re-signed as much as the AI can do it.

2) If an owner has not renewed the same happens, the end-of-season stage will be run by the AI to help reduce the number of players lost to free agency.

In general, this should solve players going to free agency because a) if an owner joins after early FA the AI should have worked to extend any expiring contracts, and b) if an owner has been running the team and then disappears after the test deadline, he should have seen the "players pending free agency" warning the last time he logged in. Sure, if he ignores it then it's still possible for the roster to be decimated, but those two cases should significantly reduce the fallout of abandoned teams.

Ok, this is good to know. Thanx