That seems like you're making a complaint out of nothing worth complaining about. What else is he going to say? "nope, not wearing that # next year. I don't want to commit to it, for fear some other team will hear me say it, and try to force us to over pay for him because I guaranteed he'd be wearing 55 next year!!!!!"
I think if you want to switch immediately, like Chad Johnson initially wanted, you have to buy them all up. And yeah, there is a deadline to change, which is probably why we're hearing about it now. Probably filed paperwork to change.