Quote:Tampa Bay did in fact provide evidence of having offered the player a contract, but the contract was not posted prior to the signing freeze and was never moved to the free agent section of the portal as stated in Section II, Subsection E, Rule 3.a.c:

On board with the contract not being posted, but this glosses over the the player also accepted the contract prior to the moratorium and it immediately became an enforceable agreement under Section I, Subsection K, Rule 1.

Quote:K - Member Conduct/Punishments

1. Enforceable Agreements: A contract agreed to by a player and GM is enforceable even if it was made through DMs or on Discord. Players and GMs may not back out of a negotiated deal once it has been agreed to. The contract is considered complete at the time of agreement, not the time of posting on the site. Attempts to later dispute or back out of that signing, will result in the following punishments:
   

If a player has an enforceable agreement in place I would contend that they aren't a UFA.  The contract is considered complete the moment it's been agreed to and neither party can renege on that agreement. That's explicitly stated.

Quote:GM’s have been warned in multiple places that the 72 hour crasher moratorium would void any contracts agreed to that were not posted at the time of the freeze. The player in question’s contract was not posted before the freeze and was never moved to free agency.

This is not stated anywhere in the rulebook.  I found it mentioned in the S80 SOTU announcing the rule change, but I go back to it is not in the rulebook.  If you want to hold someone accountable make it a rule.  You have the power to put the language in there and when drafting the rule clearly thought of this specific scenario so codify it.  It is a reasonable reading of the rulebook to say that the enforceable agreement between player and team means a player is immediately no longer a UFA and therefore Section II, Subsection E, Rule 3.a.c does not apply because it only concerns UFAs/ RFAs.  Expecting a user to read historical SOTU posts to find this clarifying language is unreasonable.  Rules go in the rulebook.  If it is not in the rulebook it is not punishable.