INDIANAPOLIS — Ryan Mallett’s boffo throwing performance, Julio Jones’ blazing speed and Stephen Paea’s record-setting display in the bench press at the scouting combine yesterday might have to satisfy NFL fans for a while. A long, long while.
The simmering labor war between the owners and players will kick into high gear this week as the sport — to the depressing dismay of its followers — is expected to shift from the playing field to bargaining tables and courtrooms.
Unless the NFL Players Association is successful in its plan to decertify before Friday, the owners are set to announce a lockout on that day or shortly thereafter that will bring the NFL to a screeching halt. A formal announcement could come Thursday, when the owners wrap up a meeting outside Washington.
The fallout would be swift and severe: No signings, no offseason workouts, no minicamps and no games — no nothing, aside from the April 28-30 draft — would follow until a new collective bargaining agreement is hammered out.
And on that count, don’t hold your breath.
Both sides are under a virtual gag order, but agents here last week were told by union boss DeMaurice Smith the battle could drag on until at least September — wiping out regular-season games in the process — because the owners are steadfast that players take a sweeping pay cut, cap rookie salaries and add two regular-season games.
The best fans and players can probably hope for in the interim is the union’s likely decertification bid — already challenged by the league as “a sham” — is upheld. Decertifying the union would prevent the owners from staging a lockout while allowing the players to pursue antitrust action in the courts.
The NFLPA has decertified before, shortly after the 1987 strike, and it led to the union winning the right to free agency after a long battle.
Meanwhile, everyone involved sits and waits, baffled that a sport that produces roughly $9 billion a year in revenue and has never been more popular could come to this point.
“You’d certainly like it to be over and done with and full speed ahead and have all things as you expect them to be in terms of free agents and so forth,” Giants coach Tom Coughlin said here last week. “That’s the [difficult] part of this — the uncertainty.”
Scouts, coaches and draft prospects are doing their best to tune out the labor noise while here at the combine, which concludes tomorrow with workouts by the defensive backs at Lucas Oil Stadium.
Yesterday was the most eventful, with Mallett wowing scouts with his cannon arm, Cam Newton disappointing with his poor accuracy but wowing with a broad jump of 10 feet, 6 inches, and Alabama’s Jones turning in a 4.3-second time in the 40-yard dash.
That set the stage for Paea, the Oregon State defensive tackle who made scouts gasp by blowing away the combine bench-press record with 49 repetitions of 225 pounds. The previous mark of 45 had been shared by Giants guard Mitch Petrus.
But the excitement was tempered by the realization everything about the NFL but the draft could grind to a halt later this week.
“I try not to worry about things I can’t control,” Jets general manager Mike Tannenbaum said last week. “Be it the draft, free agency and trades, we’re as prepared as possible. What happens from there, we’ll deal with the consequences and go from there.”