Tell me if I'm wrong in my worry about the season very much being in doubt or in fact leaning toward being cancelled.
My thoughts are that we have to go through many steps before we can get back to football:
1) I dont see anyone even starting to seriously talk again until the litigation is over. It doesn't even start until June 3rd.
2) It could take weeks to get a decision... now were into the 3rd or last week in June.
3) We then assume there is no more appeals. I don't think that's a given by any means. If the players lose and the lockout remains, they will just abandon the litigation? I don't think thats likely at all.
4) Even if theres no more appeals, we won't even start to negotiate again until the end of June.
5) We have to get an agreement between the players and owners... but that's not the end of the agreement as I will later state. We had all those mediations and over the course of many days got nowhere. I could easily see several more weeks until we get a deal in principle. Now were up to mid to late July.
6) You still have to get the owners to agree on it which means revenue sharing then comes into play. We know that Ralph hated the last deal, should we expect the owners to just quickly go along this time? I highly doubt it. We could easily see another week or more to haggle that out. Now were into August.
So, the entire FA, training camp, and preseason can be crammed into August to make the Sept opener still work? Hell no, I don't see it. It's sequential.
And then it's a matter of how many games you can lose and still have a season. Can we have a season with 12? 10? 8? I don't know if the league could try to pull off an abbreviated season like that. I think anything less than 12 makes it real questionable. And using that number, we can back it up to mean we have to have everything set to start a season before October.
I'm all for a fast resolution. But were talking about 9 billion dollars here and where it all goes. I just can't envision anyone being able to figure all of that out quickly... even when they start talking which may not be for many more weeks.
I hate to say it but I think the season is very much in doubt.
My thoughts are that we have to go through many steps before we can get back to football:
1) I dont see anyone even starting to seriously talk again until the litigation is over. It doesn't even start until June 3rd.
2) It could take weeks to get a decision... now were into the 3rd or last week in June.
3) We then assume there is no more appeals. I don't think that's a given by any means. If the players lose and the lockout remains, they will just abandon the litigation? I don't think thats likely at all.
4) Even if theres no more appeals, we won't even start to negotiate again until the end of June.
5) We have to get an agreement between the players and owners... but that's not the end of the agreement as I will later state. We had all those mediations and over the course of many days got nowhere. I could easily see several more weeks until we get a deal in principle. Now were up to mid to late July.
6) You still have to get the owners to agree on it which means revenue sharing then comes into play. We know that Ralph hated the last deal, should we expect the owners to just quickly go along this time? I highly doubt it. We could easily see another week or more to haggle that out. Now were into August.
So, the entire FA, training camp, and preseason can be crammed into August to make the Sept opener still work? Hell no, I don't see it. It's sequential.
And then it's a matter of how many games you can lose and still have a season. Can we have a season with 12? 10? 8? I don't know if the league could try to pull off an abbreviated season like that. I think anything less than 12 makes it real questionable. And using that number, we can back it up to mean we have to have everything set to start a season before October.
I'm all for a fast resolution. But were talking about 9 billion dollars here and where it all goes. I just can't envision anyone being able to figure all of that out quickly... even when they start talking which may not be for many more weeks.
I hate to say it but I think the season is very much in doubt.
Comment