Hopefully football is on the horizon.

After today’s ruling by the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis that the NFL lockout was indeed legal (on most levels), the NFL and NFLPA took time out from their negotiation sessions to parse the information and then release a joint statement:

While we respect the court’s decision, today’s ruling does not change our mutual recognition that this matter must be resolved through negotiation. We are committed to our current discussions and reaching a fair agreement that will benefit all parties for years to come, and allow for a full 2011 season.

Hopefully they keep at it and knock this thing out. The court’s ruling, while seemingly a win for the owners, also provides plenty of impetus to get a deal done. As we mentioned earlier, the court ruled locking out players that were under contract was legal, but locking out players without a contract was not. This could really complicate things if a deal isn’t struck soon. Hopefully we get good news soon.

From the standpoint of what this means to fans, just hope your team got their first rounder all the necessary information this morning or else they’re going to be in the dark moving forward. What I do not know is whether or not it’s permissible for a a teammate to copy the playbook for another teammate and get it to him that way. That could potentially still be a violation of the player’s contract, but the status of player contracts is more than a little hazy. I promise some team has already thought of that though and something will come out about it later.

As for now, the lockout continues and the owners now wait for a ruling by the appeals courts on their case. There are many differing opinions on what may or may not happen there, but the notion that a conservative court will likely side with the owners is a bit over-played. The owners are asking a conservative court to empower a union. That’s really what it boils down to and while the players keep tossing out conservative catch-phrases like “free-market system” the owners are really asking for something that isn’t exactly conservative. It will be interesting to see how it plays out.

Lawsuits and football don't mix.

According to Andrew Brandt of ESPN.com the NFLPA has begun to splinter in the wake of the decertification that took place last month. Despite the seemingly united front portrayed by the players’ union, all is not well on the NFLPA side of things. Currently, the owners are locking out the players. To combat that the NFLPA has decertified (meaning it is no longer a union) and several players have filed a class-action suit against the NFL owners.

Well now, a group of about 70 mid-level NFL players have banded together and are about to intervene in the on-going NFLPA suit so they can have their side of the argument heard. It seems as though Roger Goodell was able to connect with the mid-to-low level group of players in the NFL in his recent batch of correspondences and now the rest of the league is wondering whether what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

Whereas the the top-tier players in the league are somewhat insulated, the mid-to-lower tier players are not as financially secure. Now the owners seem to have driven a wedge between the have’s and the have-not’s in the NFL and that will help them in their negotiations long-term. Veteran linebacker Mike Vrabel understands what is at stake, Vrabel said that abandoning the cause in this way would be the wrong way to demonstrate dissatisfaction:

“We all have a seat at the table already. If they’re unhappy, then we should get together and elect a new executive board,” he said.

Unfortunately, the NFLPA is currently acting as a divided front, thus weakening their bargaining position. If things are going to get better everyone just needs to cut the crap and get back to negotiating.

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