NFL Lockout: Owners Meetings Bring Pressure For New CBA

The NFL’s labor committee met in Chicago on Monday to prepare for Tuesday’s meeting with all NFL owners and other team representatives. The topic of discussion will of course be the negotiations with the players on the next labor deal and informing those owners of the reported progress made over the past few weeks as they try to end the NFL lockout.

Throughout a series of meetings between NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell, a handful of owners and representatives from the players side, the NFL lockout is slowly but surely being whittled down. It’s believed that enough progress has been made that a deal could be done as early as the end of this month.

The goal of course is for the owners to land on a consensus this week, go back to the players, negotiate a new deal in the face of a “significant deadline”, and end the NFL lockout according to Don Banks of SI.com.

That said, the majority of owners are believed to feel that the first significant deadline in salvaging the entire 2011 season is fast approaching. Striking a deal and starting free agency by July 15 would allow for training camp and the preseason to unfold as usual, and the NFL is said to have $700 million-plus of potential lost income if it doesn’t. That would obviously mean owners will be positioned to give the players their best possible deal if a full preseason occurs.

At this point, no games have been lost. They can salvage the preseason if the two sides can work something out in the next couple of weeks. I’m one of the folks that routinely make fun of the joke that is preseason football but, at this point, I’d pay to see preseason games.

It’s better than theNFL lockout.