NFL/NFLPA Collective Bargaining Agreement: Did Judge Doty Help Make Progress?

The clock has been ticking since 2008, but among the gloom and doom of the potential NFL owner-imposed lockout, there may be a hero left who can save the day.

He was wearing a gown, but US District Judge David Doty may as well have been wearing a cape on Tuesday. According to NFL.com, he ruled that, "the league violated its agreement with the union in carving out $4 billion for itself in additional television revenue."

After seven days of mediation and a brief intermission, the two sides reconvened Monday, February 28 and also negotiated on Tuesday, March 1.

At publish time, the two sides were set to meet again Wednesday.

Does this ruling truly speed up the process? If only by keeping the two sides at the table.

Who knows how (or even if) the evaporation of those TV revenues will impact the haste with which the owners negotiate. Of course, the owners will be saving money on player salaries, but they'll be losing money on tickets. Now that they'll also lose money on their TV deals, the owners will be much less financially stable in the event of a lockout.

This is a win for the NFLPA, who issued a statement saying, "This ruling means there’s irrefutable evidence that owners had a premeditated plan to lockout players and fans. The players want to play football. That is the only goal we are focused on."

Yes, the owners' "lockout insurance" is no more, but don't get it twisted. The NFLPA doesn't suddenly have all the power in these negotiations. The owners won't truly feel the impact unless the lockout spills into the regular season, so these negotiations may not be over just yet.

It doesn't impact the subject matter of the negotiations, either. NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said after the ruling, "Today’s ruling will have no effect on our efforts to negotiate a new, balanced labor agreement.”

There will still be a debate over an 18-game (excuse me..."enhanced") season, as well as player safety issues, a rookie pay scale and the whole host of topics that have always been in the discussion.

Who knows how many of these issues have been addressed, or how much overall progress has been made.

But that's just part of the bargain.