Important up coming dates:

The NFL owners are waiting to hear back from the National Labor Board as to weather the players union desertification was a sham.

The Players association is waiting till the 6th to get a hearing in court about weather the owners locking them out is legal.

The Teams will be drafting players from college on April 28-30

And the Cheerleader squads have already begun tryouts in at least 6 major cities.

Sticky: NFL Lockout 101

In 2006 the 32 NFL team owners and the NFL Players Union signed a contract on how to split the annual revenue taken in by the sport. Back then the annual revenue was just over 6 BILLION dollars a year. The contract contained things such as how to handle a player when he reached the end of his contract with a team, creating a system called free agency. How the owners would get the first 1 Billion off the top to maintain facilities and stadiums. The players would get 60% of what was left and the owners would get 40%. But each of them also agreed to let some of their cut go to things such as medical plans, retirement benefits and rookie bonuses. Also the 4 preseason exhibition games, 16 regular season games and playoff system were set in this contract.

But there is a problem….

The root of all fun, or something...

Health care for the players

The big thing that worries me about this lock out is the heath care situation for the players. I know that I love a very violent sport and most of the highlights on ESPN every week for football involve a player getting hit so hard if he was an average human being he would be put in the hospital. And while most NFL players are NOT average human beings they are still humans.

Hundreds of players last year ended the season with a bad injury and were supposed to be getting treatment with trained staff to recover. But with this lock out they dont have access to the teams medical facilities. The NFLPA did get most players onto the COBRA medical plan but this is a stop gap situation, just a step to let players seeking medical support to be able to put down that they do have insurance. But the costs for it are huge and I hate seeing these younger guys blowing so much of thier savings on it.

Players on any team that did not make the playoffs have gone to this point 3.5 months since they received a paycheck. And the off season checks that used to start coming in around now for participating in workouts and OTAs are not going to be there until the CBA gets signed.

While I side with the players on most things in this disagreement this is the one thing they are doing (and i think HAVE to do) that bothers me.

I hope the next CBA has a clause in it saying that even if there is a lock out or impasse again in a few years the teams will keep all of the players on a heath care plan for several extra months while the impasse is resolved.

What is at stake?

You will hear a lot of Millionaires vs Billionaires talk but when it comes down to it, there is a LOT of things at stake in these Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) negotiations between the NFL Owners and NFL Players.

An 18-game season, rookie wage scale, and improvement in player health benefits are important, but, how the 9 BILLION DOLLAR pool of revenue gets divided is the big question.