NFL Lockout News: New Deal Almost Reached…Sort Of

What’s going on in the NFL lockout just continues to get more and more confusing, as the players will not vote on a new collective bargaining agreement tonight, but the NFL Players Association did give player representative DeMaurice Smith and the executive committee a “vote of confidence” to finish the remaining aspects of the agreement.

With the vote not taking place on Wednesday, as was so desperately hoped by everyone, it is possible that it could happen on Thursday. Slowly but surely, sticking points that have held up a resolution for weeks are actually getting resolved and a final vote could be oh-so-close.

The reason that there was optimism for a deal to be done this week is partly due to the fact that the NFL owners are meeting in Atlanta on Thursday. The sides worked feverishly this week to try and get something done so it could be ratified at these meetings, but that could be shaky, unless something significant happens late tonight or early tomorrow. If the players do in fact give the go-ahead on the deal, the owners can approve it, but 24 of the 32 owners must cast “yes” votes for it to go through.

The owners will be meeting regardless of what happens with the players – what happens with the players’ potential vote is what will determine the owners’ course of action during the Atlanta meetings.

The ideal course of action would be to plan out the upcoming preseason and congratulate each other on not letting their greed completely dismantle the rest of the NFL’s schedule, but at this point, who knows what is going to happen. I’ve said far too many times that the NFL owners and players are close to a deal, only to turn around and say that the sides are further apart than anticipated.

So for now, let’s just continue with the exceptionally cautious optimism.