I disagree with player offers being private. It used to be private and it sucked! I like being able to see the offers and up my own or steer clear...

All offers are private. This has never changed - during the free agency stages you see the best offer from the previous stage. This is not updated between stages. You will notice, in fact, that the "top offer" column will be 'N/A' if you offer a contract to a player who currently has no other contracts offered to him.

Coaches sign for the best offer they receive at any stage. They do not delay in accepting or rejecting an offer. They are also private, so you do not know what other owners have offered to coaches.

That's not how agent negotiations work in the NFL. We can talk all we want about tampering, but proposed contracts are known (usually by the whole sports world) as soon as the negotiating starts. What I like about the proposed contracts being shown is that you cannot tell the percentage breakdown of bonus/guaranteed money and contract/non-guaranteed money.

In the NFL people are getting paid to work around the clock to make deals happen. People playing this game have jobs and other things going on. It would become totally retarded to the point of seeing who could actually be online and get the final bid in seconds before rollover if the bids weren't private for that stage. There is no good reason to change the way it works now.

One of the #1 design priorities with MFN is to prevent any disadvantage to someone who plays in the morning vs. someone who plays right before the sim runs. The free agent signing design is intended to give you a feel for the demand of a player (by showing an obscure view of his pending offers from the previous stage without truly telling you which one has the most guaranteed money) - this is to help achieve market value for these players - but those values are not updated real time throughout the day and never will be because it would be too great of a disadvantage to players who don't sit up late and wait for the final bell.

I feel the silent bid will cause owners to actually really think about how bad they need a given player. If you need this player badly and don't want to lose them then you will tend to offer what you feel they are truly worth to you. If it's not enough to win the bid, then I guess he was worth more to the owner with the winning bid. It makes you think more about your cap number, what can I truly offer this player?

I agree too, re: private offers.

I don't think there is an advantage by 'staying up late' though as you can still put a bid in and it not be visible until whatever it is that puts it in the players bio. I'm not even sure someone putting a bid in at the last minute even works, anyone?

This doesn't work with one season owners as they pay over the odds, let the team go at the end of the season and the next owner has to pick up the pieces

Putting a bid in at the last minute is no different than putting it in as soon as the sim has run because you don't have access to any more information at the last minute than you had early in the morning.

Same goes if the bids are visible, with even a greater chance of it happening. At least the one season owner you refer to wouldn't be able to outbid everyone, every time with the silent bids.