Well, all signs are still pointing toward a lockout, as Len Pasquarelli reports:
“I’m just talking for myself, but, sure, I’m (dismayed) by the progress,” Carolina owner Jerry Richardson, who recently had sounded a note of pessimism on the lack of movement toward a collective bargaining extension, told The Sports Xchange. “To me, it’s baffling. It’s really baffling.”
Equally confounding was the disparate nature of assessing the condition of the negotiations from owners who spent nearly four hours listening to commissioner Roger Goodell and league vice president and lead negotiator Jeffrey Pash review the talks with the NFL Players Association. Unless the commissioner recently mastered the art of speaking in tongues, he and Pash delivered the same message to everyone at the assemblage.
But that doesn’t mean all the owners heard the same thing, because interpretation of the commissioner’s words was certainly diffuse.
There is, stressed many of the owners and club representatives present at the one-day caucus, and reinforced Goodell, unwavering unanimity of purpose among the NFL’s stewards. What is more scattered, however, is the subjective view of where things stand less than two short months before the existing CBA expires. The CBA between owners and players expires on March 4.
The players are being advised by their union reps to expect a lockout before training camps would be due to begin, and the owners have indicated they’re willing to keep the players locked out as far as the fourth week of the season.
The two sides, Pash reported, haven’t conducted a substantive negotiating session since before Thanksgiving. Despite reports to the contrary, there are no meetings scheduled. The union a week ago filed a collusion lawsuit, at least its third court action (there is an action before special master Stephen Burbank concerning the re-negotiation of television contracts that guarantees the league an income stream even in the event of a work stoppage, and an OSHA-type request on safety/injury issues) in the negotiations.
It can’t be in anyone’s interest to have another strike-shortened NFL season, but both sides appear to be willing to risk taking it that far. The league has floated the idea of moving to an 18-game season (up from 16 currently) while reducing the pre-season from four games down to two. The players are against that move, as they believe it will expose more players to the risk of injury during meaningless late-season games.
One of the big issues is expected to be the way drafted players are compensated: first round picks are being paid huge salaries before they’ve even stepped on their first NFL field. Both sides are probably willing to come up with some kind of cap for rookies (who, obviously are not represented in the negotiations), the owners to avoid paying millions of dollars to players who don’t live up to their reputations, and the union to try to redirect some of those big salaries to their existing members.
