Are you ready for some football?!?!?! For realz!

It's over, it's over. The 136 day lockout is finito! Once again, it holds true that football does not really start until end of July! However, just as I predicted it was one hell of a roller-coaster ride to get to this point, from the Owners' vote last Thursday (gratuitous link due to this very bLawg getting cited) to today, but I do not think it is premature to say that the lockout is over and there should be football in the near future!

Players Stuff the Rush

Just as I imagined, NFL players are not moving so fast on a vote on the NFL Owner's ratified agreement, with many stating that the owners may have tried to sneak in some non-agreed to terms. Also, as I mentioned, the players are not so quick to recertify their union and they are not happy that the Owner ratified agreement would interfere with their decision to reform as a union. NFL Network Reporter Albert Breer Tweeted:

Just filed a story on a second email from NFLPA to player reps, breaking down issues with deal and, in particular, recertification timeline. Email says NFL's rough timeline violates fed labor law: "Those laws prohibit employers from coercing their employees into forming a union."

The players may not be unfounded with this claim, as Section 7 of the National Labor Relations Act provides that “[e]mployees shall have the right to self-organization, . . . to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, . . . and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all of such activities..." The players may be able to make a successful claim that the deadline to re-certify violates Section 7 of the NLRA.

More to come...

Are you ready for some Football?!?!??-Owners' Approve...now in the players hands

According to many sources, the NFL Owners have approved a new collective bargaining agreement. The players will have a conference call at 8:00 PM EST to vote on whether to accept the agreement as well. The more interesting issue is that theoretically speaking, in order to accept the deal, the players would likely have to recertify as a union first and there are reports stating that a coalition amongst the ranks is against doing so. My opinion is that the owners likely would not accept a ratified CBA that is entered into via the Players' "Trade Association" because they would then lose their anti-trust exemption when it comes to player restraints. Usually a Union protects the interests of an average player to the detriment on superstar players, so it will be interesting to see who is in the coalition against recertification. Either way, stay tuned for what could be a climatic ending to the NFL Lockout.

I apologize for my recent lack of posts as I have been doing "2-a-days" in anticipation for the CA bar next week. I plan to provide an analysis of the biggest changes in this new CBA that affect sports labor and employment practices and which could impact the NBA's and MLB's respective CBA negotiations. I also plan to analyze this Recertification issue in more detail when my life gets back to normal. Follow me on Twitter for mini updates and I apologize for the brief hiatus.

Good Luck to any fellow bar takers out there...

You can find the NFL players in an Iowa cornfield

Here is FunnyOrDie's humorous take on the NFL Lockout. James Earl Jones actually does a pretty good job explaining the legal issues.

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Field of Dreams 2: NFL Lockout with Taylor Lautner from Taylor Lautner

What about us? Retired Football Players seek to Intervene in NFL CBA Negotiations

NFL Hall of Famers Carl Eller, Franco Harris, Marcus Allen and Paul Crause filed a motion asking U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson to halt the mediation she ordered between the NFLPA and NFL Owners, and order that neither party can negotiate on behalf of the retired players. The retired players fear that the NFL Owners and current players are conspiring to dilute the retired players' benefit amount as a way to come to an agreement on how to split the $9 billion in revenue. Previously, the retired players and their legal representatives had been involved in the earlier mediation sessions, but as the mediation venue has changed, and as the NFLPA and players get closer to an agreement, the retired players have been excluded from the recent negotiations. The complaint alleges:

'Through the settlement they are forging, the Brady plaintiffs, the NFLPA and the NFL defendants are conspiring to set retiree benefits and pension levels at artificially low levels[.]'

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words. What is a 'Non-picture" worth?

The Los Angeles Times is running an interesting story on how NBA.com and all NBA team sites have removed all player images from their sites. Now when you surf over to your favorite team's site or NBA.com, you are greeted by images of pictures David Stern's mug (meh), cheerleaders (niiiiiice), and WNBA players (yiiiiiikkkkkkkkeeeesssss!).

How did the Verbal Handshake almost turn Into a Symbolic F You?

While the NBA and the NBPA were descending into the lockout abyss, it looked as if the NFL and its player were ready to emerge in harmony from their lockout inferno. In fact, it was only Wednesday where Player Head DeMaurice Smith invited NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell to jointly address the NFLPA Rookies at the NFL Rookie Symposium in Sarasota, Florida.

However, that optimism soured when Smith and Goodel returned to the bargaining table yesterday,