An espn columnist put together a good piece Monday about the NFL's four-and-half month long lockout and included a list of those who will benefit the most now that the League has reached an agreement.
According to the National Football League's Player Association head, DeMaurice Smith, neither side got exactly what they wanted but noted that they've reached a deal that "we think is fair and balanced".
What it all really means however in the grand scheme of things is that there will be NFL football this summer and fall.
After an agreement was reached on Monday afternoon, the NFL is back.
After at least a couple times, the two sides appeared to be within a deal, the two sides weren't even close at the time, according to various media reports.
But following more reports on Monday afternoon, the NFL is back. They only ended up missing one scheduled game, the Hall of Fame game which would have been played this week in Ohio. A handful of NFL clubs apparently now have the green light to start up their training camps.
The lockout which lasted four-and-a-half months.
According to the timeline for league business to begin, player trades can now be made as of yesterday (Tuesday) and free-agent signings can be made with the league office starting Friday at 6 p.m. ET. Players can begin reporting to training camps 15 days before the scheduled date of their first preseason game.
According to the deal agreed to by the players to end the lockout, 10 clubs would report today, 10 more tomorrow and another 10 on Friday.
The New York Jets and the Houston Texans would be the last two teams to report, on Sunday. The league will hold two conference calls Monday afternoon; one will be for league general managers at 3 p.m., ET, and another for coaches at 5 p.m. ET. Owners had overwhelmingly approved a proposal last week but some unresolved issues still needed to be worked out.
There was pressure from the owners to the players to get the deal done.
If there was no deal in place by yesterday (Tuesday), the first week of the preseason could have been in trouble, costing both sides $200 million in revenue.
As of Monday, the deal was estimated at being "about 97 per cent done", according to www.espn.com, so the deal being completed wasn't surprising.
The biggest news items to come out of the agreement are: free agency, each team's salary cap, rookie salaries, minimum salaries and franchise tags.
Free agency returns to the way it was going back to 1993-2009. A player now needs four years of experience to become an unrestricted free agent. Last year, players needed six years to go on the open market.
The salary cap stands at $120 million.
Now it will be interesting to see who lands where in terms of free agency. If you think that some of the contracts handed out to the pro hockey players were crazy (ie Brad Richards), wait until you see what some of these NFL guys are going to get.
Starting immediately.
As of yesterday, clubs could begin talking to veteran free agents; they will be able to sign as soon as Friday. On Wednesday training camps will start to open. According to espn.com, the Colts and Vikings are prepared to start earlier then their Sunday start date.
If there's anything you'd like to see covered by Game 7, please forward your suggestions to the Yorkton This Week sportsdesk by phone (306) 782-2465 or by email at jeff@yorkton this week.com
