Up until yesterday, NFL Owners were absent from all of the mediated bargaining sessions with the NFL Players. To me, that was a huge problem since the Owners will obviously have to be a major part of any new deal getting done. That changed a bit yesterday when New York Giants owner John Mara joined the talks yesterday. A nice step, but still I wanted more.
Today, the entire membership of the NFL owners' Labor Committee joined in on the talks, meaning for me that the negotiations are finally getting serious. The Labor Committee consists of Co-Chairmen Jerry Richardson of the Carolina Panthers and Pat Bowlen of the Denver Broncos, Jerry Jones of the Dallas Cowboys, Bob Kraft of the New England Patriots, Art Rooney of the Pittsburgh Steelers, John Mara of the New York Giants, Mike Brown of Cincinnati Bengals, Clark Hunt of the Kansas City Chiefs, Dean Spanos of the San Diego Chargers and Mark Murphy of the Green Bay Packers,
I see this as a big step - not necessarily for a new deal getting done before the deadline - but to show the owners are, indeed, serious about making progress. What that means over the next 36 hours remains to be seen, but any hope at all is worth clinging to.