The Canberra Raiders and Sydney Roosters managed to shake the NRL to its core just days out from the November 1 deadline, but the uncomfortable truth for the players involved, the fans, and maybe even club administrators is that it was the right call to make.
The call they had to make, in fact.
On Monday afternoon, the Canberra Raiders were the first to jump, revealing Hudson Young had not signed their club-record offer before the deadline, and they took it off the table.
Just hours later, on Monday evening, Sam Walker's offer was ripped up by the Sydney Roosters.
Nick Politis was tired of waiting for his star halfback to sign on for a valuation some might have called a little inflated, approximately $1.3 million per year.
While some have been up in arms at the clubs about "how you could possibly let your biggest stars walk?" has been a commonly surfaced question in the last 24 or so hours, from a roster management point of view, the Roosters and Raiders are simply protecting their own interests.
This will be the biggest 12 months of player signings in the sport's history.
The Dolphins and Perth Bears have certainly generated headlines and seen players change clubs, but that will not compare to the PNG Chiefs, who can begin signing the rest of their squad from November 1.
Rugby league is simply not ready for a salary cap with a tax-free incentive included for players to make a life-changing decision and move to Port Moresby.
The clubs know it. The administrators know it. The NRL will be a very different place in 12 months' time, if it isn't already.
The Chiefs, of course, have already signed seven players for their inaugural season, including big-money deals for Jarome Luai and returning rugby union duo Zac Lomax and Joseph Manu, as well as the move of four-time premiership winner Brian To'o from the Penrith Panthers.
That in itself has already started to stretch the salary cap, and the Chiefs will have halfbacks, hookers, and forwards on their mind when they start to raid the rest of the open market in the coming weeks.
That will drive player prices up across the board, and leave other clubs, including the Roosters and Raiders, scrambling to fill their rosters competitively.
In a normal year, a million dollars or more in uncommitted and offered funds to one of your own players beyond November 1 is an exceptionally dangerous game to play.
This year, it's just about a suicide mission for your long-term squad planning.
In the Raiders case, the club record offer for Young not being taken frees up over a million dollars per year from 2028.
It's already been theorised they will use it to go and target Liam Martin, and that's absolutely a fair compromise for the green machine: replace one of the game's best second-rowers with another of the game's best second-rowers, possibly for a hundred grand less per year.
Even if that's not how it pans out, it will allow the Raiders to go and attack other areas of their squad. Maybe they look at a gun centre to pair Simi Sasagi, or a middle-third option like Stefano Utoikamanu, to replace the mountain of talent out the door at the end of 2026, with Morgan Smithies, Josh Papalii and Corey Horsburgh all exiting.
Add to the fact that Joseph Tapine retires at the end of 2027, and the Raiders have themselves a real problem that will need serious money to fix.
At the Roosters, Sam Walker is off-contract, but so too is Nathan Cleary.
Cleary won't be signed before November 1 either, and while the Panthers are desperate to retain him, what's to stop the Roosters from using their own war chest to build an offer out - something that has been theorised more than once or twice already in the last 12 months.
Walker is a very good player; let's not get that twisted, but the jury is still out on whether he is truly elite.
The Roosters ultimately won the premiership this year, but so much of that was down to Mark Nawaqanitawase, Daniel Tupou, James Tedesco and Daly Cherry-Evans.
Of that quartet, only one remains next year, putting an enormous amount of pressure on Walker to be the guy to lead the ship around the park.
Is he up to that challenge?
It would take a brave man to write him off, but when he is being offered elite money before he has proven himself without those players around him, you can understand why Nick Politis and the board decided to rip the offer up.
Not only to protect their own interests after November 1, but because, frankly, pushing for more than $1.3 million (if the reported figure is correct) is actually disrespectful.
Whichever way you spin it, the decisions that the Roosters and Raiders had to make have been made.
It now remains to be seen whether they put their early foresight to good use or not.
