The NFL and NFLPA today are back at it today before federal mediator George Cohen, with lawsuits ready to be filed if no new labor agreement is reached. Talks between the two sides went into overtime yesterday, when they agreed to a 24-hour extension of the expiration of the CBA. The extension also applies the Reggie White antitrust settlement that governs the CBA and was also set to expire.
With little chance to get a deal done today, the one-day extension is expected to lay the groundwork for a longer extension of days if not weeks. If that does not occur, however, then the scenario of a union decertification and player lockout could commence. The union had begun to prepare for a 5:00pm ET press conference yesterday to presumably announce it was decertifying, but that was put off. The mediation, which began at 9:00am and was to end at 1:00pm, stretched to almost 6:00pm (Daniel Kaplan, SportsBusiness Journal).
A source said that Cohen has "gotten the union to agree to a 7-to-10 day extension on labor talks, but still awaits the owners' response." The two sides "still have major differences," which Cohen will "revisit independently" today while seeking the owners' agreement to a longer extension (ESPN.com, 3/3).
For continuing updates, see the SBJ/SBD NFL Labor Watch page.
