bgedgerly deserves a medal for taking on this effort and actually getting JDB's attention. This is the No. 1 thing ruining the game, and you're my new favorite person here.
There's an immediate step that could be taken, which is reverting the ownership logic to whatever it was before. It is perplexing that this didn't happen within hours, when it became an obvious problem.
Yes, the AI built weak teams, but it didn't let stars enter FA, and it didn't go over the cap. As it is, no AI team will ever be competitive because they end up -$40M in cap space and then try to field a roster of 46 featuring ancient mediocre guys with $50M contracts.
Everybody is making good points here. It makes a lot of sense to start with reworking the default ratings. I believe setherick has picked up that torch before. If nothing else, place much more emphasis on speed. (There's a bigger conversation to be had about bringing a dose of reason to player speeds. It shouldn't be easier to find an 80 speed DE than an 80 speed CB. There shouldn't even be a less than 80 CB. But I digress.)
I don't think we need to get in the weeds of trying to simulate human behavior, but there are some basic rules that would help. Like not signing a 35-year-old to a massive 6-year deal. And
don't sign a player if it would cause the team to exceed cap space (including projected rookie salaries).
Perhaps the AI could determine a market value based on the average of actual contracts for players at the same position, age and rating league-wide. (The same could be used for extending players in their final season.) Humans could easily outbid the AI, but at least the AI team wouldn't be ruined when a human comes along.
Also, there's at least one big glaring difference in salary cap rules between here and the NFL. Only the top 53 salaries (and dead space) should apply, which means you could sign one-year, league-min contracts in perpetuity. Even if the AI wrecked a team, you could at least put a full roster together.