Today’s question comes from Gary Morgan:
Q: When are we going to get football next year?
A: Gary, that is the $9 billion question hanging over most everything NFL-related these days.
The NFL has formally locked out the players — no contact between players and teams is allowed on any level — and that has ground to a halt any football business not pertaining to next month’s draft.
The players have decertified their union to try to improve their chances of challenging that lockout in court. Unions cannot sue their employers under antitrust law, so the union decertified so individual players could join a lawsuit to challenge the lockout.
And that’s where things are at the moment.
Still, even given all that, most people in the league sort of nervously believe there will be some kind of season played in 2011. That could change if some unexpected things happen in the coming weeks and months, but at the moment most folks believe the offseason will be profoundly affected, but some kind of regular season will get played.
Teams around the league are preparing for some sort of free-agency period as well. They have prepared their player rankings and have positioned themselves to participate if there is some kind of abbreviated free-agency period.
But it will be mid- or late-April before everyone gets the first hint of a direction in all of this.
There is an April 6 hearing over the players’ lawsuit that challenges the NFL’s lockout. It is expected it would take a week or a little more for a ruling.
Most labor experts believe the players, as a result of that hearing, will get an injunction to prevent a lockout.
But the league will likely challenge, saying how can there be a lockout if there is no “union,” since the players have decertified.
So, that April hearing will tell at least the start of the tale.
Should the players secure the injunction to prevent the lockout, the league would have to put some framework in place for everyone to do business — the previous year’s rules, for example. So teams would then do business under that framework as they continue to fight out the remainder of the issues in court.
In that scenario, the games could go on and free agency would take place under the 2010 rules.
Which is why if the players win an injunction to end the lockout, there is a feeling that would also force the two sides back to the negotiating table in the near future. A long legal battle would be expensive for both sides, and both sides risk a great deal financially now and in the future if they simply leave it up to the courts.
However, it’s all uncharted water at this point for the NFL, and until both sides decide to dial down the rhetoric and the attorneys fees and dial up negotiations, there are no guarantees for those fall Sundays and Mondays.
Jeff Legwold: 303-954-2359 or jlegwold@denverpost.com
