Niners Nation After Dark: Why To Expect NFL CBA News Or Other Big News This Week

Welcome to another edition of Niners Nation After Dark where we are here to drown our sorrows over St. Mary's tough loss to the Gonzaga Bulldogs in the 2011 WCC title game. The Gaels have a shot at an at-large bid for the NCAA tournament, but it's going to be loooooong week of waiting for Selection Sunday. I didn't attend SMC and have no personal connections to the school, but in covering them over the past few months at SB Nation Bay Area, I've become a fan. So hopefully the selection committee decides they're worthy.

I wanted to use tonight's NN After Dark to get you ready for some kind of big news this week related to the NFL. This has nothing to do with insider knowledge or some tip. Rather, I'm heading to Las Vegas on Wednesday for the Mountain West tournament. Over the last few years, whenever I've gone on vacation to Las Vegas some kind of big news has occurred. Usually it's related to the 49ers, but I figure anything could happen. I went to Las Vegas for Christmas and Mike Singletary was fired. A year ago I went to Las Vegas for the first weekend of March Madness and Scot McCloughan was either fired or quit.

Now I'm heading back down to Las Vegas for a week and am just assuming something has to go down. Given the turnover already I can't imagine it would be related to the 49ers front office. Given the CBA issues it won't be a player signing. The CBA stuff also holds up stadium issues, so I don't see it being something related to a Bay Area football stadium. That leaves us with the NFL's labor situation.

So what does this mean? Well, we've had a mix of good and bad news when I've been down in Las Vegas, so it could be either a deal being reached or a lockout being imposed. I'd lean towards the latter, but maybe we'll luck out and it will be the former? Either way, this is your strongest evidence that there won't be an additional extension of negotiations this Friday. It may sound crazy, but if the past has been any indication, something big is going down related to football sometime between Wednesday 11:30am when I leave San Francisco and next Tuesday morning when I return to San Francisco.