Following yesterday’s news that the NFL and NFLPA agreed to push the deadline for a new collective bargaining agreement back 24 hours, we’ve got more potentially good news today. SI’s Peter King has tweeted this morning that "serious, significant progress’’ has been made on issues involving the CBA.
According to other reports, the general framework of a deal has started to take shape, but there’s still a lot of major issues to hammer out. It’s not going to happen today. However, according to Michael Silver, if we see yet another extension agreed to, perhaps for a week or two, that’s a strong sign that the two sides feel like a deal is reachable. If another extension is not reach by the day’s end, that means they’ve reached an impasse on something fundamental and the doomsday scenario is the next likely step.
That would involve the owners voting to lock out the players, the players de-certifying their union and filing a class action lawsuit, the owners countersuing and so on… The legal proceedings that would follow are what would threaten the 2011 season.
So don’t expect a deal today, but keep an eye out for another extension. If that happens, it’s very likely that we could be only a few weeks away from a deal.