Yeah yeah, I know, it sucks to be back at work. Hopefully you had a fun, safe and eventful 4th of July. The good news is we have a short work week and the weekend will be here before we know it. This week we’ll want to pay close attention to lockout news because the mediation this week is apparently critical to a new deal potentially being finalized. Lawyers are meeting today and tomorrow to update contractual terminology. Then, mediation between Goodell and DeMaurice Smith will resume. While a deal is unlikely to happen this week, what transpires this week should give us a good sense of how realistic the chances of things being done in short order are.
A possible new curveball/wrinkle in talks is…
retired players, including former Super Bowl MVP Marcus Allen (pictured), suing the NFL to become involved in talks. If they are successful, it’ll be a third party fighting for their best interests which will undoubtedly slow talks down even more. Apparently the retired players aren’t comfortable with the current players speaking for them. That’s not good as progress has been very difficult to come by with the best interest of 2 parties involved. If you throw a third party in the mix and the courts give them legitimate power, it will delay any deal even further.
The first preseason game is fast approaching on August 7th, and the Hall of Fame has made the statement that they expect the game to happen. If a deal isn’t done this week, that’ll mean all operations will be back running inside a month before that first game. That seems like an incredibly short turn around. We’ll see… One thing is for sure: if and when a deal gets done, free agency news will be coming at us at about 100 miles an hour. Should be pretty exciting stuff, if and when that ever happens.
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