Fortunately for football fans, we all can at least look forward to this highly anticipated NFL Draft.  However, this year’s Draft will be slightly different. This year, unlike a normal NFL year, once players are drafted by their respective NFL franchises, they are unable to sign any contracts.  Additionally, while not getting paid, these players cannot do any football related activities at their team facilities as well.  This can be detrimental to an incoming player if not given the maximum amount of time to start learning the playbook, working with new teammates, and adapting to an entirely different game then they played in college.  If this lockout continues into the summer or even the season, don’t be surprised to see young players struggle on the field early and often.

Now, what would the 2011 Draft in the midst of a league lockout be without controversy, right?  On March 15^th, the story broke that the NFL Players Association, now just a trade association whose mission is to support the interests of both current and former NFL players, has been asking the top 15-20 prospects to reject the NFL’s invitation to walk the stage and shake Roger Goodell’s hand after being drafted.

The NFLPA’s plan is to have the prospects boycott the draft and will provide these players with a similar experience across the street potentially.  There have also been talks of competing with the NFL’s live draft coverage on ESPN by having a different network cover the NFLPA’s version of the draft with the prospects.  How this all plays out is still up in the air but it’s a very interesting development that will make for some good TV.  One thing is certain, the NFL’s league spokesman Greg Aiello has gone on the record to state that whatever the NFLPA decides to do, the NFL will still send out invitations to the top prospects and their families to attend this event.

This has made for a very interesting discussion the past week and half.  It seems that everybody has an opinion on the topic.  Some individuals, like Tedy Bruschi, who is now a football analyst for ESPN and former Super Bowl Champion with the New England Patriots is in favor of the NFLPA’s plan to have the top prospects boycott the draft.

Bruschi on numerous televised programs has argued that such a move would continue to show strength and unity between the players, which is something they need to maintain during the lockout.  Bruschi acknowledges that this is a tough predicament for these rookies to be in, but stresses the importance that all players, whether former, current, or future, must all be on the same page.  It’s reasonable to see where Bruschi is coming from. How are the current players supposed to gel and work well with the rookies once football operations eventually begin if they are not willing to show their commitment to the former and current player’s stance at this time?  The same commitment and mission that they will soon be a part of once drafted.

Another individual with a similar opinion on the topic is Mark Schlereth, current ESPN football analyst and former Super Bowl Champion with the Denver Broncos and Washington Redskins. Schlereth brings up a valid point when discussing the topic on the hit ESPN show NFL Live soon after the story broke.  He points out that the NFL will make so much money off these kids for their appearances at the Draft and their participation with interviews during the event but asks what will the rookies get in return?  Not too much.  While they will have the memories, it’s the NFL that will benefit off this televised event the most.  They are the guys who locked them out which keeps these rookies from signing a lucrative contract with a team and getting paid.  These rookies are the ones who as mentioned before, won’t be able to get in the training facilities and work with their new teammates and coaches as early as possible to prepare for the grueling season they are about to embark on.

What’s even worse is the NFL wants to impose a rookie wage scale capping off how much these rookies can make on their initial rookie contract.  Talk about getting the short end of the stick.  These rookies are in a tough spot this year, dilemmas that no other rookies in the sport have ever had to face before.

On the other side, many individuals feel that this is bad public relations move on the part of the NFLPA.  One ESPN analyst and former Head Football Coach in the NFL Herm Edwards, believes that this is a special moment for the rookies and their families and hopes that they all attend the draft in NYC.  Edwards feels that it’s selfish what the NFLPA is asking these players to do.  He goes on to state on an episode of NFL Live on ESPN, that if he was the parent of a son being drafted, he would tell them to go and enjoy the moment.  It also appears that most NFL fans are on the same side as Edwards.

In recent polls on ESPN.com, roughly over 70% of fans believe that this is a poor move on the part of the NFLPA and disagree with it.  It will be exciting to see how this major story plays out in the next month leading up to the Draft in April.

Another intriguing twist to the lockout is the current state of some of the NFLs most important policies.  First, with this lockout, the NFL Personal Conduct Policy is suspended.  This has been a famous policy that appears to be in the news on a regular basis because players find ways to get themselves in trouble, forcing Commissioner Goodell to punish players, usually by suspensions, on a regular basis for violating the Personal Conduct Policy.  However, with the lockout, a player who violates the law is not in trouble with the NFL.

Interestingly, these players are not subject to any retroactive punishments after the lockout is over.  All Roger Goodell can do is hope that players obey the law and don’t get themselves in trouble while the Personal Conduct Policy is suspended.  This is wishful thinking however because as we have seen many times before, whether its Vick, Roethlisberger, Burress, or any other player, these high paid professionals are bound to get in trouble in one way or another.  This will be something very interesting to follow along as time goes on.

Additionally, during the lockout the No Substance Abuse Policy is not in effect at this time as well.  To make matters worse, in a profession where regulation is needed, NFL Agents are allowed to do run wild and free because there is no Regulation of Agents during the lockout.  Thus, agents can poach from other agents their clients and even contact college football players in efforts to get them to sign with the agent before they even declare for the NFL draft and still in amateur standing.  This can become a real mess for the NFL to have to clean up potentially and might be detrimental to a lot of kids so it’s worth keeping an eye on to see if anything happens.

With all these events going on since the lockout began, it’s hard to keep track of everything but to make matters more complicated, there has been more legal maneuvering.  The NFL this past week on Monday March 21^st has asked a federal judge to keep its lockout in place.  The league argues that there are no legitimate legal grounds to stop the league from locking out the players once they decertified.

The league is claiming that the players are just trying to manipulate the legal system with their ridiculous antitrust lawsuit.  The NFL is claiming that any decision on the validity of the lockout should be withheld until the National Labor Relations Board rules on the unfair labor practice charge the league filed against the now-dissolved players union on February 14^th, in which the NFL claimed the players union failed to bargain in good faith because their intentions were to decertify all along.  This charge on February 14^th was later amended on March 11^th to include the union’s decertification.  At this time, the National Labor Relations Board has stated that the investigation is still on-going and had no further comment on the matter.

If you have been able to read through this entire article, then you should be caught up on the soap opera that is the 2011 NFL Lockout.  With all the controversy, distrust, lawsuits, and intriguing stories, it will be interesting to see what happens after the dust has settled.  In what has been publically labeled as a fight of “billionaires against millionaires,” this could be the sequel to the famous action movie “Faceoff” starring Nicholas Cage and John Travolta.  Instead of those two stars, Faceoff Two would star NFLPA’s leader Demaurice Smith and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell.  The same theme exists here as in the original film which is, whose the real bad guy?  Whoever it is, that’s for you to decide.

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What a mess!  This sums up nicely the almost two months since the most-watched Super Bowl as well as the most-watched program of any kind in American television history was held. This past Super Bowl being played in the new Dallas Cowboys stadium between the Green Bay Packers and the Pittsburgh Steelers beat the previous record of 106.5 million viewers which was the record for last year’s Super Bowl.

While the NFL Lockout just began on March 11, this Lockout has been in the making for over two years, going back to 2008 when the NFL opted out of renewing the now recently expired collective bargaining agreement with the NFL Players Association.  Owners claimed the reason for not renewing their agreement was because costs were too high and the owners would need givebacks of some monetary amount from their players in order to make it worth there wild and to keep operating under what is now the former Collective Bargaining Agreement. Besides this small story in the news, we haven’t really seen the impact over the years until now.

A lot of major events have happened since the Super Bowl which have shaped the heated and messy landscape that the owners, players, and fans have been exposed too and endured this New Year. A time line of events hopefully will help to clarify the current state of the NFL as we see it today.

Before the Super Bowl on January 18, the NFL Players Association, here after called the Union, filed a collusion claim against owners regarding lack of movement of restricted free agents.  On February 6, the day before the Super Bowl, both sides met for a brief negotiations session where nothing was accomplished.  Then, Happy Valentine’s Day to you too sweetheart, the NFL filed a charge with the National Labor Relations Board on February 14th for not bargaining in good faith because the Union had plans of decertifying for a long time now.  Soon after on February 18^th, renowned federal mediator George Cohen began working with the two sides in Washington to see if some type of agreement or extension could be reached.

Cohen actually fared better than most experts thought, given an almost impossible task; he was able to keep the two sides at the negotiations table for over two weeks. An impressive feat for how far apart the sides were at the start and considering how much they distrusted each other.  Then on March 1^st, U.S. District Judge David Doty, who was a major player in the Labor disputes between the NFL and NFLPA before in 1993, ruled against the NFL, claiming they violated the Collective Bargaining Agreement when they sought for a 4 billion dollar TV revenue profit guarantee even if no games were played in the 2011 season due to a lockout.

This was considered “Lockout Insurance” to Doty who implied in his judicial opinion that if there was indeed a lockout and the players brought an Anti-Trust suit claim against the owners, that he would rule in the favor of the NFLPA once again.  This ruling was seen as a huge victory to the players and blow to the negotiation strategy of the owners.  Then, potentially because of this ruling, the two parties on March 3^rd, just before the official Collective Bargaining Agreement would expire, decided to extend the deadline one more day to continue talks.

The following day, the two sides then agreed on March 4^th to extend the deadline for an entire week, in order to continue negotiations.  Sadly, to football fans across America, the following Friday, after rejecting the owner’s proposal, the NFLPA decertified giving up its right to represent the players.  Later that night, at approximately midnight, the NFL led by Commissioner Roger Goodell imposed a lockout of the players once the Collective Bargaining Agreement expired.

Now having proceeded to what can be described as an ugly divorce, headed by Demaurice Smith as the Union leader and Commissioner Roger Goodell for the NFL and its owners, 10 players filed an antitrust lawsuit and injunctive request in the federal court in St. Paul, Minnesota on March 11th.  This is the same court that Judge David Doty resides.

To try to clarify, an antitrust case is a legal action brought against a party or parties who are being charged with limiting free competition in the marketplace.  The players are essentially claiming that the league and its owners by locking out the players from all football activities have limited the players’ ability to market their services to any employer of their choice, which includes price fixing of the amounts that would be paid to the players.

In this proceeding, the alleged anti-competitive actions that have generally taken place include a lockout to prevent free-agency and by boycotting rookie players through efforts to force their salaries to be lower then what they actually would be in a free market.  This claim is seen through the proposal to implement a rookie wage scale and cap to how much rookies can make.  The suit, which seeks to end the lockout against the players, names Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Drew Brees as its lead plaintiffs along with other current NFL players

In addition to current players, the league in its effort to show uniformity included one of the incoming top rookie prospects, Von Miller of Texas A&M.  Then, surprising to the union, it is U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson and not Judge Doty who has scheduled a hearing for April 6^th.  Additionally, while some people have expressed curiosity as to why such a high profile case, would take almost a month to have a hearing, this month turnaround is actually fairly quick for cases in the legal world.

While this waiting period has been going on, a lot of interesting events have still taken place, either feeding football fans appetite for news on their beloved sport, or just angering them.  With the lockout taking place, all football operations and activities are suspended.  Essentially current NFL players are “locked out” of the facilities and are unable to communicate with coaches and other personnel.  So even though there is not scheduled to be any OTAs, minicamps, or even film study sessions at team facilities at this time with the players, one event is guaranteed to happen, the 2011 NFL Draft held in New York City.

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The NFL officially has a work stoppage. As of 12:00 a.m. March 12, 2011 the NFL owners imposed a lockout, disallowing any players from entering the teams’ facilities. This came just hours after the NFLPA’s union dissolved itself, and just as the current CBA expired.

There seemed to be some light at the end of the tunnel, as the CBA kept being extended and the two sides continued to meet for 16 days of face-to-face mediation in front of a federal mediator. Now NFL fans should be worried. The NFL has become incredibly popular to a level unprecedented. The last two Super Bowls have ranked as the highest watched programs in U.S. television history.

So the big question now is what happens next? Now that there are chains locking players out, negotiations will head to the courts. A number of NFL players have filed a lawsuit to try to block the owners’ lockout. These players include some of the league’s biggest stars, Tom Brady, Peyton Manning, and Drew Brees. The antitrust suit attacks the NFL’s policies on several key issues including the draft, salary cap and free-agent restrictions such as franchise tags.

Who knows how long things could drag out in the courts. The key figures, DeMaurice Smith and Roger Goodell now take a back seat to relevancy as judges and lawyers become the role players for now. Goodell even reduced his salary to $1 during the lockout, a symbolic gesture, but also to belittle his role from here on out.

Clearly the biggest loser in this whole ordeal is the fans. The draft becomes less exciting because draft-day-trades can only include picks for picks and not player swaps. No players that are drafted can be signed until an agreement is reached, leaving new players and old players in a sort of limbo, not knowing when and where their futures lie. Fans usually excited about the draft and impending free-agency, or prepping their fantasy teams, will be left hoping for a season at all. What good is a fall Sunday on the couch with no football? What else is exciting about a Monday night?

Not all is doom and gloom for fans though. College football isn’t going anywhere, and although the sanction-ridden league constantly has problems, nothing will ever stop the games from being played. Players that might jump to the NFL early will stick around, and NFL coaches that are out of jobs could jump into the college game, making the product on the field that much better. With the added attention to the college game, perhaps something will be done about the awful BCS system and the lack of playoffs.

Television networks could also capitalize on a lack of football, putting premier shows on Sunday or Monday nights, or trying out some new pilots for the future.

The last time there was serious labor problems in the NFL was 1987 when there was a player strike, and the NFL brought in replacement players. They could attempt the same thing this year, but the lack of star power would make it a tough product to sell.

Another interesting idea that has been out there is the players creating their own league to force the owners’ hands. Former and current players would simply create and run their own league, or could even join the UFL, making it relevant and sliding around the NFL’s demands. Several networks would rush to pick up TV contracts, and there are plenty of stadiums around the country that would fill up to see an NFL game, minus the NFL tag. This would give the players all the power, forcing the NFL to make concessions, or disappear forever. Imagine Jerry Jones with his billion-dollar stadium, and a Dallas Cowboys team that no longer exists.

This is just one proposed idea of many but hopefully the two sides don’t allow things to get that far. The selfishness and greed needs to end and an agreement on how to split billions of dollars from TV contracts, ticket and merchandise sales, sponsorships, etc. needs to be compromised.

Reports stated that the NFL and union were still about $185 million apart when talks broke down on Friday, which is progress, but there were still so many other issues involving free-agency, pensions, safety, the number of games, and rookie salaries that the two sides could not agree on.

The union also had a problem with NFL owners not opening their books to prove that they needed the money they were claiming, citing a problem of trust and transparency.

So although it may be a tough pill to swallow for fans out there. Don’t give up. Things will work out in some way, and regardless, there will be good TV in the fall NFL or not. The “fat cats” in this issue will not come out on top, and hopefully in the end the game will once again be the most important aspect, the game for the fans.

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