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NFL Lockout: Is This a Big Week for Settling Things?

By Chris Pokorny
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I have not paid a lot of attention to the details of the NFL lockout the past couple of weeks, other than making sure a new collective bargaining agreement was not reached. This coming week, particularly on Tuesday and Wednesday, could be a big one if the owners are going to agree on a new deal. From what I have gathered, here are some of the details as things stand now:

  • Over the past couple of weeks, the owners and the NFLPA have made significant progress toward reaching a new deal. Exactly what that means remains a guessing game.
  • A small subset of owners have been acting as the lead negotiaters in CBA discussions. Things stirred up this past week too when the lawyers, for a moment, were taken out of the process to stop them from getting too involved in the negotiations.
  • This Tuesday, June 21, is a big day for Roger Goodell. Goodell will get together with all of the owners where they will be updated on the progress of the negotiations. A lot of the owners have been kept in the dark thanks to a court order to keep talks as confidential as possible.
  • Whenever a new CBA agreement is reached, only 24 of the 32 owners will need to approve it. That means as long as nine owners do not back out, things will be all good. One of the original beliefs was that a vote might take place on Tuesday to see if the lockout can end. Instead, it sounds like the crucial part of the meetings, according to ESPN's Adam Schefter, will involve trying to fend off resistance from some of the owners who aren't satisfied.
  • Why is this a big week to settle things then? If a big part of the meeting is to fend off resistance from some owners, then that means that a good percentage of the owners might be ready to go through with a new CBA. We have to wonder if the "resistance" that has formed is even nine people strong. If it is less than that, we might be closer than we think to seeing an end to the lockout.
  • July 15. That is the date that most of the reports are referring to as the "deadline" for a deal to be reached in order for training camp and preseason games to carry on as planned. If things go smoothly this week, it will be a significant step in getting everything else worked out over the next month for the deal to be finalized.

Feel free to correct any interpretations I made on the current status of the lockout if necessary. I recommend you check out the following two reports for more details on the lockout, as they were my primary source of getting up-to-date:

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