NFL Lockout Insider: Which Side Is Right, the Players or the Owners?

If you are like me, you might tend to get a little confused each time the media announces something in regards to the NFL lockout. 

We heard a few days ago that the lockout was “over”, but then we heard that teams were not allowing players to work out in team facilities and that things may still stay on hold for the time being. 

The NFL tried to get the decision handed down by the courts to stay (so that it wouldn’t go into effect) but lost that battle.  Now it looks like the lockout could go on for a while, quite possibly into June and beyond.

This whole agonizing process has done a lot of damage to the NFL in a variety of ways.  If the NFL is forced to abide by last year’s rules, then teams will be hurt by the lack of options in free agency.  There will also be some teams limited in free agency and those teams won’t have too much opportunity to rebuild and reload for the coming season.  Free agency itself will be limited by the talent in it if a new deal isn’t reached.

Both the players and the owners have failed to realize that they are destroying the most popular sport in America. 

Fans want football (this was evident at the draft when commissioner Roger Goodell had to slightly delay in starting the draft, because of the demands of the fans present at Radio City Music Hall).  Fans are missing one of the more interesting and most studied parts of the NFL offseason right now—free agency and OTA’s.  This is the time when teams are “made”, and fans are missing out on that.

And so are the players and the teams.

Nobody wins in this situation, no matter how much money the players get, or how much money the owners don’t give to the players.  Without football, offseason or regular season, no one wins.

Both the owners and the players are part of a collective group of prideful people.   Both sides know what they want, and they both want very different things. Unfortunately, at the speed this whole thing is progressing, it’s never going to get done.

But which side is right? Is it the players that want more money, or the owners that don’t want to give it up?  Do the players deserve more, or do the owners deserve to keep more?

Does it matter to fans how it plays out with the money?  Not at all.  What they want is football, and right now this argument is putting what they want in jeopardy. 

Right now it looks like the lockout and the court case surrounding it could take a long time.  There have already been whispers of a complete and total shutdown of the NFL and its teams as money grows tight and time grows short.  If that happens and the whole process continues to go forward without a resolution, the 2011 NFL season may be in jeopardy.