The NFL’s lockout rolls on, and with no sign of imminent resolution, the NFL has scratched the 2011 NFL Rookie Symposium off its calendar, a source tells ESPN’s Adam Schefter.
NFL Lockout: Rookie Symposium Cancelled, First 2011 Season Event Lost
The symposium, set to be held at the Pro Football Hall of Fame in Canton, Ohio on June 26, likely becomes the first regularly scheduled NFL event cancelled of the lockout. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello cited “the uncertainty of the labor issues we are facing and the logistical challenges of conducting the symposium” as the reasons for cancellation. If the NFL can’t reliably plan events a month in advance, though, that bodes poorly for planning a season should this lockout stretch into summer.
Furthermore, this only increases the chances that the 2011 NFL Draft class will be one of the league’s more ineffectual crops of rookies. First-year players have already been hampered by a lack of permissible contact with coaches and team personnel, and face further losses of practice and training camp time. But the Rookie Symposium has been credited with helping many rookies be successful on and off the field, and removing it from the NFL’s schedule disproportionately hurts this group of rookies.
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