EHM The Blue Line

Is it just me or is it now harder to sign soon to be RFA's? It seems to me that if they've played really well during their ELC they refuse to even suggest a desired salary amount, and then proceed to refuse every kind of offer. Also the AI seems to let quite many players walk into free agency (at least qualifying them most of the time, although sadly not always).

Yeah, 9/10 there is no point in even trying to sign your ELC guys "normally". You kinda have to just give a qualifying offer and then sign them from RFA. It's the exact same deal with players coming off their bridge contract, they will ask for so much money and a short 4ish year deal while on your roster; As soon as they hit RFA they will drop wage demands by as much as 50% and want a 7 year deal. It really makes very little sense, but it's how it works in this patch at least. It does mean that in practice you won't ever lose a player to UFA before they are 33-34 years old (depending on birth date); Because they always ask for a bridge contract that ends their last year of being RFA eligible.