Will the NFL Lockout ever come to an end?

You may be asking yourself why we should be so concerned about the NFL lockout. After all it has only hurt the 2011 offseason right? Those owners and players are going to come to an agreement before the season starts correct? Sure there will be some offseason workout time and quite possibly some training camp time missed but it will be ok yes?

After watching what has happened with the NFL lockout process so far it’s hard to imagine there being a quick end to this lockout. When the whole process moved to the courts it signaled that the two sides are very far apart in coming to an agreement and now that it’s “stuck” in the American court system we shouldn’t expect a quick and simple resolution to this matter.

There are several differences that the two sides can’t seem to get over. The biggest difference is what both sides want to do with the large amount of profit that the league generates. In the last deal that the NFL and the NFLPA signed the split of that profit was 60/40 in favor of the players and the owners lived with that agreement for a short amount of time.

But, the NFL’s ownership finally woke up and realized that they were on the wrong end of that deal and opted out of continuing the collective bargaining agreement signed in 2006. That has got us to where we are at today.

Fans have voiced their opinion about the lockout. The general consensus is that they don’t like it and want it to be done so that it doesn’t affect the upcoming football season. The NFL does know that its fans are upset and they saw this first hand at the opening of the 2011 NFL Draft. Fans attending the draft chanted “we want football” over and over again holding up the start of the draft. Fans want football but there isn’t much that they can do but voice their opinion and wait it out.

At the rate things are going right now it would appear as if the 2011 season may not start on time. There are some early June court hearings that will dictate whether or not the lockout will continue and all indications point to the fact that the NFL will win these cases and the lockout will move on.

The best case scenario is that the players will realize that they aren’t going to win in court and will come to the bargaining table ready to negotiate a deal. With some of their bargaining power lost it might be easier for an agreement to be reached.

If an agreement does finally come by the first week of August the NFL will have to cancel some of its preseason games but the regular season appears like it would be in track. But after the first week of August for every week that there isn’t a new agreement one week of the season will be missed. It’s not known yet if the games will be taken off the front or the back of the 2011 season but games will start being missed and this is not what the fans want to see.

If there still isn’t an agreement by the middle of the 2011 season then the entire 2011 season may (and probably will) end up being cancelled.

Feel good that an agreement is coming soon? Well unfortunately the odds better that it’s not going to happen right away and that the 2011 NFL season will indeed be delayed. Even if they do sign an agreement in time just how good will the quality of play be for the 2011 season? It is sure to be damaged due to the lack of workouts, the lack of time for coaches to spend with rookies and the inability of teams to effectively implement new systems. Can we hope the lockout ends soon?

We can but it doesn’t look like it will.