I have been playing this game for 20+ seasons, and thought I had a good feel for how free agency works, but this offseason I have seen some very strange things.  Here were the things that I thought to be true:

1) If you are the only person bidding on a player then he will sign at the end of the first day
2) If you start bidding on a player who was previously not getting any action (dropping his demands) then if you offer them a contract they will usually either accept immediately or accept after waiting one more cycle.
3) Players involved in bidding wars will usually last until the end of the free agency signing period.

This offseason I have seen a number of weird things happen that I hadn't seen before:

- I got leapfrogged during a bidding war and the player signed immediately without warning, as happens occasionally with IFAs.
- A player that I was #1 on during the first day as the sole bidder (Iknow I was the only bidder because I was offering only one year) did not sign at the end of the first day and waited until the middle of day two, at which point someone else hopped in the bidding and offered a 4-year deal, at which point the player signed immediately without warning.

Has anyone else noticed weird things happening in free agency?  Many owners in my world are complaining that guys are signing without warning, which I hadn't seen much in the past. 

I did notice that a player that I bid on, and believe that I was the only bidder (I offered exactly his demands, and was #1 the whole time), also did not sign after 24 hours.  It may have taken until day 3.

Other than that, I don't believe that there should be any rules of thumb for when to expect signings to occur.  By keeping some randomness and mystery in the process, it prevents owners from trying to game the system.

I agree that it is good to have some randomness as far as when they sign.  I was just curious if others were seeing it as well.  I am a little concerned to see the rash of signings where one of the owners does not have a chance to respond.