Falcons fans, the NFL did not turn into a pumpkin after all on Friday. An offseason of NFL purgatory will have to wait another week.
Now, it seems there are some glimmers of hope. The original 24-hour extension - an impossibly brief period of time to come to a new agreement considering the complexity of the issues before the two parties - proved not to be a simple a dog and pony show and the new seven-day window, agreed upon by both sides a little after 2 p.m. ET Friday leaves room for actual optimism.
It all makes me think back to the 2005 NBA finals when labor Armageddon loomed in San Antonio. It was the eve of Game 1, and the parties were 18 days from the expiration of their collective bargaining agreement as NBA Commissioner David Stern engaged in some heated rhetoric. Deputy commissioner Russ Granik was pessimistic and said he thought it was "unlikely" a new CBA could be agreed upon by the deadline.
Guess what? They found a deal.
Friday morning the signs began to show that they were positive. FOXSports.com's NFL labor blog noted at 10:24 a.m. ET that Sports Illustrated's Peter King reported "serious, significant progress," though King reported the state of negotiations as �fragile.� Earlier in the day, Yahoo!'s Michael Silver reported "for the first time key figures in each camp believe a deal is highly achievable."
Some pro sports leagues have real financial issues. It's hard to argue the NFL does. These negotiations are not about fighting for an economic system to avoid teams going bankrupt - as the NHL's 2004-2005 lockout that canceled an entire season was - this is about both sides fighting over who gets more money.
According to Forbes' valuation of NFL franchises in 2010, only two had negative "operating income" (think profits) and those two teams were in two of the nation's largest media markets, Detroit (horrendously mismanaged for decades) and Miami (which was valued at more than $1 billion, by the way).
The Falcons, whose value of $831 million ranked them 26th of 32 teams, made $34.5 million in operating income in 2009, according to Forbes. The least valuable team in the league, the Jacksonville Jaguars, made $25.9 million.
As for fans, especially with this being March, most could seem to care less about the particulars of the negotiations unless or until it affects something they really care about, like games or player movement.
By Friday afternoon, the most popular threads on the message boards at AtlantaFalcons.com were about:
DeAngelo Williams and Larry Fitzergald playing to the local audience by saying on the radio they liked the idea of playing in Atlanta (92 replies).
The archrival Saints' signing defensive tackle behemoth Shaun Rogers (75).
A farewell to long-time wide receiver Brian Finneran, whom the team will not re-sign (68).
Comparatively, a thread on what happens next if the league goes into lockout mode had only 23.
That's fewer replies than a link to a Q&A with head coach Mike Smith from the NFL combine got (25).
To go on a tangent for a minute, Smith seemed mostly concerned with the team's ability to generate a pass rush. Defensive end John Abraham was one of the NFL's best pass rushers last season, but for anyone who knows the history of Abraham's sack totals, they follow a roller coaster pattern. Here they are: 4.5, 13, 10, 6.0, 9.5, 10.5, 4.0, 10.0, 16.5, 5.5. Basically, it's up, down, up, down, up, down, etc.
Last season he had 13. He'll be 32 in about two months. If his production goes down without anyone to fill in, the defense - exposed as it was by Green Bay in the playoffs - will be in trouble.
One way the Falcons could address a possible down year from Abraham is through the draft. It would make sense, considering all of the speculation from the Combine that the Falcons could take a defensive end with their first pick, which is no. 27 overall.
In his top 100 list compiled after the combine, NFL.com's Gil Brandt, the former Dallas Cowboys' personnel man, put Purdue defensive end Ryan Kerrigan (6-foot-4, 263 pounds) in his third tier, where the Falcons will pick.
If one of Brandt's "second tier" players falls to the Falcons, the possibilities include Iowa defensive end Adrian Clayborn (6-4, 285), Cal end Cameron Jordan (6-4, 283), whose father Steve was a tight end for the Vikings for 13 seasons, Missouri's Aldon Smith (6-5, 260) and Wisconsin defensive end J.J. Watt (6-6, 279). (A quick note here: As the Journal-Constitution's Darryl Ledbetter likes to point out, Falcons general manager Thomas Dimitroff, an Ohio native, has avoided picking Big Ten players in his first few drafts. Dimitroff, however, has picked two Missouri players high in the draft - Sean Weatherspoon and William Moore, both starters - as well as Thomas DeCoud out of Cal, so you might want to review which schools the above draft-eligible players attended.)
Honestly, this is what fans want to know about, not, with all due respect, the "sports professor" Rick Horrow's video blogs on FOXSports.com about the state of labor negotiations.
After the negotiations seem finally to have gained some steam - they only do when both sides are facing a deadline - some light has appeared on the horizon for Falcons fans. Maybe they can look forward to filling holes on the defense via free agency and whether Birds finally pick a player out of the Big Ten instead of becoming amateur sports labor experts - a much less rewarding pastime.
