Federal Judge Susan Nelson (pictured) has ruled in favor of the players and has lifted the lockout effective immediately. If you haven’t heard, that means players are allowed to go back to team facilities. She also denied the NFL’s request for a stay, which means the ruling is headed for the 8th circuit court of appeals. While the lockout is lifted for the time being, no one is really sure what that changes in practice. The teams aren’t sure, the players aren’t sure, and the legal issues are likely to change things again eventually. The real question is how long will everything take?
The more immediate question is can free agents be signed and trades be made now? If so, do the teams want to do so quickly before another lockout happens, or will the owners who want a lockout refrain from signing off on free agents until a new deal is in place? Lots of questions…
Roger Goodell had his own feelings to share on the ruling…
He wrote this very scary article in the Wall Street Journal about what a player’s victory in this case could mean for the NFL. I’m hoping that’s just a scare tactic.
The reality is we are nowhere near an end to this everlong saga. As expected, now that the players have decided to take this bout to court and left this situation in the hands of legalise, two steps forward will continue to include one step back. Ultimately, a collective bargaining agreement that everyone can settle on still has to be the way to resolve this and that cannot be done while the parties are stuck in court suing each other. I question if the players took the right route on this, but I understand they’re doing it to gain leverage.
This is just another step in the process, a process that’s nowhere close to being resolved. Losing games is still a very real possibility, and the complexity and uncertainty of the process is losing the interest of NFL fans pretty quickly. Did you even make it through this entire post? My point exactly.
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