http://sports.espn.go.com/nfl/news/story?id=6660319
That's what Mort just said, as the meetings continue. Owners have a meeting next week and it appears to be to vote on the new deal. Things are finally looking good. We could well be talking about CURRENT football in a matter of days.
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MrClean, muscle979, GMJohnson and 1 other person like this.
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Leverage mode.
In retrospect, the owners lost a lot of leverage when Judge Doty found the "lockout insurance" clauses in the television contracts to be illegal. The NFL just didn't want to admit they lost leverage by coming down from their demand of a change to the status quo of how the players and owners have been sharing revenue (50/50) over the last few decades.
They engaged in a staredown and put their hopes in the court system, which hasn't been totally hostile to them but thus far hasn't been totally helpful either. I think they might have also been hoping De Smith would suffer a lot more pressure from the players behind him, given the fact that his election was hotly contested and he is no Gene Upshaw.
But overall, I think in retrospect that once those lockout insurance clauses were stripped out of television contracts, the owners had a timeline. They were not going to let their desire for a change to the long term status quo of the business relationship between players and owners...to interfere with the 2011 NFL season. -
Getting down to "dollars" time for both sides, the NFL has Doty's ruling hanging over their heads, the players have the lockout decision coming out around 7/4 AND the preseason schedule is worth 600 million to the NFL inc., with so much cash on the line now is the time to make the deal.
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They both brought in the lawyers this week, after not having them the past two weeks. This tells me they are starting to look at contract language after making progress.
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That certainly is a possibility. It doesn't hurt to have them there, thats for sure. It would be nice to get some good news soon regarding this nonsense. It will be nice to something else to talk about. :lol:
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I'd qualify that as "1st-marriage-bickering married couple mode". Even though I'm older and grumpier now, I'm much more compromising in my 2nd marriage.padre31 likes this.
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"Wait and see if the courts give them any significant leverage" mode.
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The one thing I most look forward to is FA and the following player cuts. If it's a 4 year deal, as I believe it will be, there will be a glut of FAs on the market with little time to sign them. I don't see players being able to play teams against each other as they did before. It's hard to say if that will lead to lower or higher prices but teams may make one and done, off to the next offers at a number of positions. Then, they will have hardly any time to shop a trade for the player being replaced. It's gonna be some fun.
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Last I heard, that was a dead issue but, that was over a month ago.
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Well, it might not be that dead. The players have been pretty dead set against the 18 game season unless it comes with an increase in pay reflective of the increased work. Seems fair. But it could still be a bargaining chip.
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NFL source: Labor negotiations 80-85 percent complete
It's a good read. Really great to hear right now.
http://www.cbssports.com/#!/nfl/story/15231374/nfl-source-labor-negotiations-8085-percent-completeSICK, MrClean, Trackstar and 1 other person like this. -
Nice. the sooner FA happens, the better.
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And here are three ways they can screw it up...
First one is a gem. :lol:
http://eye-on-football.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/22475988/30028910
Basically they threw Phil Unwin out of the room and progress was made. :shifty:Aqua4Ever04, Southbeach and Vengeful Odin like this. -
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So, after another 3 weeks we'll be at the point where the deal is 90% done. :shifty:
Desides likes this.
I think that the turning point was when the Comish and Smith had dinner together. The Comish had agreed to work for $1.00 and, not to be outdone, Smith agreed to work for nothing. Neither could afford to pay for dinner. Both realized they had best STFU and let a deal get done. :)
When I read the following, the first word to come to my mind was "stagecraft":
All a dog and pony show at this point.