NFL Lockout Expected To End On Monday After Players’ Vote

Everyone has a timeline of when how the NFL will re-open their doors and get back to business. Pro Football Talk has the timeline that’s being presented to the NFLPA executive committee and player reps so I would expect this to be close to what will actually go down when the lockout is officially lifted.

The caveat is that, while deals can be negotiated, no money can actually be paid to a player until the players officially reform as a union and ratify the CBA. This needs to be done before Aug. 4.

Here’s some good news, football fans: the latest labor deal between the owners and players does not include an early opt-out, NFL Network’s Albert Breer reports. That means the 10-year agreement is just that -- a firm 10-year deal.

In the last collective bargaining agreement signed in 2006, there was an early opt-out which the owners exercised at the first possible time in May 2008. That won’t happen this time around.

If you’ve turned on the TV or opened your computer on Monday morning, then you know by now that the NFL lockout is nearly over. The owners and players agreed to the final details of a new labor deal early Monday morning and the players are expected to vote -- and approve -- the deal on Monday.

The NFLPA has confirmed that there is an 11:00 a.m. (ET) conference call with the players’ executive committee and 32 player reps. Presumably, this is about the time a vote will go down to approve the deal. The 10 named plaintiffs will also have to sign off on the deal but that’s not expected to be a problem.

According to a variety of reports, the NFL players agreed to a proposal with the owners on a new labor agreement to end the NFL lockout. The agreement reportedly came sometime early Monday morning around 3:00 a.m. (ET). A press conference is expected to go down sometime on late Monday morning or early Monday afternoon.

Of course, this is all contingent on the players actually voting to approve the deal, which should take place sometime on Monday. That’s considered a formality at this point.

According to ESPN’s Adam Schefter, if the NFL Players Association ratifies a collective bargaining agreement with the owners on Monday, NFL teams would be able to re-sign their own free agents as early as this afternoon.

Schefter’s timeline also has teams being able to discuss trade parameters and negotiate with other team’s free agents (restricted, unrestricted) this afternoon, though trades would not be official until Saturday, July 30.

We’re hearing a variety of predictions on when things like free agency and training camp will start once the NFL lockout ends, which is expected to happen on Monday. We’ve pieced a few reports together (much of it from Mark Maske of the Washington Post) and believe we have the rough and unofficial outline of what the league year will look like if/when the players approve the deal on Monday.

Starting on Tuesday, teams would be able to sign their own free agents, undrafted free agents and rookies. They would also be able to begin talking to other teams’ unrestricted free agents on this day as well.

Jay Glazer of FOXSports.com is the latest to report the NFL lockout is likely ending on Monday. The owners and players worked into early Monday morning on the final details of the deal and it’s believed the players will vote on Monday to approve the deal.

The players’ executive committee will vote first to recommend the deal followed by the 32 player reps doing the same. From there, the 10 named plaintiffs will give the OK to the deal and if that happens we’ll be talking about actual football.

In the e-mail (via NFL Network’s Jason La Canfora), Brees informs his teammates that the deal will be announced on Monday at a press conference. After that, the 72-hour window for teams to re-sign players could begin on Tuesday and that free agency would begin on Friday. However, none of this is finalized yet.

The league year, Brees writes, would begin on July 31 and that would be the day the Saints report to training camp and hold a team meeting. The first report believes physicals would take place on Saturday.

As with most reports emerging these days on the NFL lockout, there’s always another side to the story. While Sunday morning reports had the new agreement between the owners and the players settled, Sports Illustrated’s Jim Trotter has another side to the story. On Sunday evening, Trotter tweeted that the deal has not been completed yet, but it should be finished on Monday.

Both sides are probably arguing over the inclusion of a split infinitive on the 335th page. Actually, there’s no indication what both sides are working on while they work toward a successful agreement, but language is obviously a god bet on what need to be work out.

There are a few different timelines floating around about how the post-NFL lockout schedule will go down, including ESPN’s which has training camps starting on Wednesday or Friday of this week, and free agency starting on Saturday.

Mike Freeman of CBS Sports has a different timeline.

The NFL’s players and owners had a breakthrough this weekend which may lead to the end of the NFL lockout and the return of football. Heading into the weekend, the players had three major steps to take care of: resolve the settlement, recertify as a union and hammer out the final collectively bargained items.

It appears they’re getting closer to that. The two sides are getting to the point where it seems most reports have the end of the lockout as a formality at this point.

According to a new report this morning by Mike Freeman at CBS Sports, the NFL lockout of 2011 is all but over, and the NFLPA vote coming on Monday is more or less a formality. The players and owners are said to have reached an agreement on the CBA, and the players will approve the deal in a vote on Monday, according to Freeman’s source, a player.

This sounds very definitive and not like a smoke and mirrors report at all. It appears that the NFL lockout is finally coming to an end and that the labor stoppage will finally end on Monday.

The NFL lockout may be over early this coming week. We heard similar statements last weekend and none of that held true. However, the NFLPA has spent the weekend negotiating with the owners to iron out any problems in a new collective bargaining agreement. Talks have gone so well apparently that the NFLPA will hold a press conference on Monday to announce an agreement with the owners.

One significant change that happened over the weekend was wide receiver Vincent Jackson dropping his compensation claim for either unrestricted free agency or $10 million as part of the settlement deal in the Brady vs. NFL lawsuit. He was the last remaining of the 10 players in the lawsuit who agreed to drop any demands.

At this point, all that’s left in the NFL lockout is declaring a winner in the race to declare the work stoppage over. It’s going to happen at some point, perhaps as soon as Monday. But from all indications, the negotiations aren’t quite finished, and a few unresolved issues remain. If we’ve learned anything after the numerous false starts in declaring the lockout dead, it’s that nothing is a sure thing and it’s not over until both the owners and players say it’s over.

Which makes the following tweet irresponsible, at least in my opinion.

Because of the NFL lockout, HBO will not air its popular training camp series, “Hard Knocks,” this season. With training camps, free agency and the exhibition schedule all in flux, it seemed as though the HBO series was always in jeopardy, but the show was an afterthought with the bitter labor struggle ongoing and the prospect of canceled games looming.

Peter King broke the news to the world on Twitter Saturday afternoon, confirming the expected.

Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith struck up an odd relationship throughout the NFL lockout, working together in the midst of a emotional rollercoaster of negotiations and public battles in the media. It was Goodell and Smith huddled together in secret meetings and over the last few days, it’s the same two working together to iron-out the last few details.

How solid is there relationship, even after Thursday’s power play by the owners? They’re still talking this weekend and if everything goes according to plan, Goodell may be at an NFLPA press conference to announce an agreement on Monday, according to Chris Mortensen.

Saturday’s talks between the National Football League and NFL Players Association has led to “major progress” towards a new collective bargaining agreement, ESPN’s Chris Mortensen and John Clayton reported.

Legal and financial teams for the NFLPA are working throughout the day, with the 11-member NFLPA Executive Committee members remaining in contact via phone. The 10-member NFL Management Council Executive Committee also held a conference call to discuss the outstanding labor issues.

Jackson, one of the 10 named plaintiffs in the Brady vs. NFL antitrust lawsuit, was reportedly making demands -- or someone on his behalf was making demands -- such as a cash payout or lifting of the franchise tag in return for his signature in the settlement with the owners.

Jackson tweeted earlier this week that he just wanted to play football and wasn’t making demands but multiple reports suggested otherwise.

As the NFL owners wait for the players to make a move on a new collective bargaining agreement, there are still issues that the players need to resolve in any new agreement. According to Pro Football Talk, on Wednesday the NFLPA received a summary of a deal that included 10 open issues, but which were not in the one the owners’ approved deal.

Among the 10 issues, there are several that jump out. The first issue deals with teams needing to spend 89 percent of the salary cap and other conditions on spending. Another issue is with the rookie wage scale, as the open issue is whether fourth-year players will receive an escalator clause to boost their salary to $1.2 million. Another issue that was left open was to have the franchise tag be applicable only once in a player’s career.

This is the bizarro world of the NFL lockout we’re living in now: Adam Schefter, who just minutes before reported the players will reconvene on Monday to figure out what to do with the owners’ proposal, is now reporting a meeting is not certain. Instead, the players will continue to stay in contact throughout the weekend -- the NFLPA office will be open, as well -- and figure out what to do next when the time comes.

Let’s contrast, shall we? First up, the email from the NFLPA, courtesy of Schefter.

Yep, the NFL lockout is still on. The players and owners have yet to formally finalize an agreement that will end the lockout and, while we think they’re very close to doing that, we still don’t know when it’ll all become official.

The player reps have been considering the owners’ latest proposal, which was issued on Thursday night. The first step for the players will be voting on the settlement but, according to reports, that likely won’t come on Friday.

The NFL lockout continues but there’s finally a light at the end of the tunnel. The owners and players have gotten to the point where they’re very close to finalizing settlement terms and hammer out the final details that will allow us to get back to our regularly scheduled football programming.

The process of these two sides coming to a signed, sealed and delivered agreement isn’t as simple as saying, ‘We agree, let’s do this thing!’ There are multiple steps remaining before football can return. To no one’s surprise, the NFL and NFLPA can’t agree on the process of ending the lockout but here are the three steps that need to be taken as best as we understand it.

More changes are expected to be coming to NFL rosters in the 2011 season and beyond. NFL executives met at an Atlanta hotel on Friday morning for a labor seminar on the new rules involved with the owners proposal to the players.

Though it’s not officially official, the executives in that meeting were told that game day rosters would expand from 45 to 46 players, according to NFL Network’s Jason La Canfora. However, there won’t be a third quarterback designation.

So the NFL lockout story continues to go round and round.

The dispute started back in March when the owners disagreed with how the players were decertifying as a union. The dispute continues on Friday with the owners disagreeing with how the players were recertifying as a union.

In the last labor agreement extended in 2006, there was a clause that allowed each side to opt out of the deal early. The owners did so in May 2008, the earliest point in which they could opt out.

In the latest proposed labor deal, the owners have said there will be early opt-out clause in the 10-year agreement. That means it would be a hard agreement of 10 years.