According to CBS Sports.com's Mike Freeman the owners and players are close to completing a deal. His source who is close to the negotiations has the deal 80-85% done. The two sides have been negotiating without those pesky lawyers in the room, but now that they seem to be close to a compromise the lawyers are back and hopefully are just there to finalize deals already made.  But of course they could be there to throw a bucket of monkey wrenches into the negotiations. 

All the signs are pointing in the right direction at this point. NFL Network's Albert Breer has also been reporting that both sides are willing to make significant concessions. But the closer you look into why this sudden change of course, the more it looks like the players will get the short end of this negotiating stick. Yes, we are getting closer to a cancellation of preseason and possibly some of regular season, which means a significant loss of cash, but the owners have much deeper pockets than the players. They like their money, but they can see the prize is still a good CBA that gives them a huge pie piece.

Early on it looked like the players had the upper hand in the courts when Judge Nelson ruled in their favor and told the NFL to get their act together, but then the NFL just took their case to the business leaning Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals and they've had the upper hand ever since. So the players know that unless they appeal to the Supreme Court they are probably going to lose, and going to the Supreme Court means games and probably the season will be lost. An NFL player does not want to lose a year of his career or his salary. Even the superstars have legacies and yachts to think about.

So yes, the owners don't want to lose any money, but are in a better position to do so, while the players, especially the role players, are not in the same position. Yes, both sides may be making concessions to expedite the process this late in the game, but the owners hold the upper hand. As a fan of the NFL I want to see free agency play out, players practice, even meaningless preseason games, but I also hate to see the owners get their way on what seems to be an uneven playing field.

But, that's where we are and the Eighth Circuit isn't going to all of the sudden become pro union, so we might as well get our beloved NFL back! Hopefully this thing just gets done and all the positive talk isn't a smokescreen.

Photo: thisgeekredes, Creative Commons 2.0