The NFL Lockout situation continues to move along with an end sort of in sight but leaving some room for doubt. For those of us expecting Lucy to continually remove the football as we're about to kick, things are just dicey enough to keep us locked in to Twitter and the NFL Network.
Many people (including myself) were hoping the players would vote on a proposed global settlement agreement before the close of business yesterday, but that did not happen. Instead, the player representatives submitted a bit of a conditional vote in which they accepted a deal pending resolution of some outstanding issues they have been trying to resolve. With the owners meeting today in Atlanta hoping to vote on a new deal, that puts everybody in a bit of a bind. The owners could vote to approve a deal but if the players are still making even modest changes that would leave the owners simply going through the motions.
And what are some of the issues in play? Well, the twitterazzi have pointed to the $320 million in lost 2010 benefits, some workers compensation issues I discussed at sbnation.com/nfl, one-time franchise tag discussions, and the general settlement of the various accompanying lawsuits that make up the global settlement. Depending on who you ask on Twitter you'll get a different answer about what exactly is the primary issue.
In your ultimate glass of cold water, Chester Pitts, who was in the DC meeting, actually told Tony Bruno it would take two full weeks to get the situation resolved. At this point, some speculate the players are dragging their feet for final concessions. None of us here can really say for sure that is the case since we're not in the meetings. All we know about the issues is what the media tells us, which makes it second hand at best, and possible further depending on their sources.
The ball would appear to be in the players' court at this point and they hold some semblance of power at this point. Maybe they're holding out for important concessions or maybe they're just being greedy. I don't know at this point so that will leave me glued to Twitter and the NFL Network.
If anything of real significance goes down today we'll get updates to you, but in the meantime this will be an open thread for labor discussions. Over at the dot com you can also follow the lockout story stream.