Memo to NFL Owners and Players: ENOUGH ALREADY! 1
The general consensus during the five month long NFL lockout has been that if the two sides end up with a deal that doesn’t result in the loss of games, then there will be no lingering side effects and the two sides can go back to playing football and counting their billions in revenue.
After the shenanigans on both sides over the last 24 hours, that may have changed, at least for the short term.
We have been continuously told over the last week or more that the financial framework of a new deal had been agreed upon and the two sides and their lawyers were now just finalizing other secondary aspects of the deal.
The timeline consistently being presented through the media was that the players’ representatives (no longer known as a union) would vote on the agreement early in the week and the owners were to meet and agree on July 21st.
Then suddenly things started to get bogged down and pushed back.
Finally, on Thursday the owners met as expected and approved the agreement. Expectation originally was that the players would be doing the same thing, but that soon changed.
It still isn’t clear exactly what, if anything, is a real issue hanging up the final end to an off-season that no fan wants to ever again endure. However, it is starting to appear that egos and a last chance of one-upmanship is the reason that a final agreement hasn’t yet been approved by the players.