NFL Lockout: Will Football Fans Be Able to Rock Out After the Lockout?

Believe it or not, the NFL lockout is not long for this world.

I know, I know. It's probably getting harder and harder to believe with each passing day, and Friday wasn't exactly a banner day in terms of optimism. Word came out that the Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals (whatever that is) had come to the conclusion that the lockout is, in fact, legal. The decision was not unexpected, but there's no ignoring the fact that it was a victory for the owners.

The good news is that the ruling is not expected to change the nature of the ongoing collective bargaining negotiations. Apparently, it's a little too late in the game for some guy in robes to mess things up.

No sir, the players and owners are perfectly capable of doing that themselves, thank you very much. According to ESPN NFL sage Sal Paolantonio, the two sides made "very little progress" on Friday. The lawyers are going to continue working through the weekend, but the negotiations themselves won't pick up again until Monday.

Because the consensus is that both sides need to wrap this thing up by July 15 in order for the season to go off without a hitch, things are looking pretty bleak, right?

Actually, not really. Despite the lack of progress in today's talks, the word around the campfire is that a deal could very well be in place by next Friday. If so, that means we could be just a week away from the end of the lockout.

As far as the men doing the negotiating are concerned, that means they are just seven days away from things like trades, free agency, training camp, and eventually, the preseason and the regular season. In other words, they are a week away from things going back to normal.

But what about us fans? Let's say the lockout does come to an end on Friday. Will things go back to normal for us?

For most, probably. By virtue of my overactive imagination, I see quite a few football junkies out there jumping for joy and slapping hands after hearing of this theoretical development. And why not? After weeks upon weeks of contentious, drawn-out, legally-jargoned, pigskin-less hell, football would finally be back! Clearly, it would be time to rage.

Then again, it might not be. I suspect all of us will want to rejoice in our own way, but there will probably be a bit of confusion as far as how to go about it.

It's possible, perhaps even likely, that many of us will not want to celebrate at all, that the anger we feel towards the NFL will not be so easily brushed aside. Sure, they reached a deal and will soon be out on the gridiron again, but why should we be quick to forgive them?

It is also possible that many of us have gotten far too used to the reality of the lockout. At first we hated it, then we tried to understand it, and then we came to accept it. Kind of like the Stockholm syndrome, except... well, except not.

Either way, the point is that it is going to be weird to suddenly not have the lockout in our lives. To suddenly have it yanked away is going to give all of our nervous systems a jolt, and the reboot may take a while to complete. When they do, then what?

Good question.

To help illustrate things, that famous scene from Apocalypse Now comes to mind. You know, the one in which Robert Duvall kneels down and says to Martin Sheen, “Someday this war’s gonna end.” Then he gets up, walks off the screen, and that’s the last we see of him. The “then what?” was pretty heavily implied in that case.

Same goes for the lockout. Someday it's gonna end. After that, who knows?