LATEST: NFL Senior VP/PR Greg Aiello had this to say about the reports that the NFL walked away from negotiations: "Despite the inaccurate characterizations of yesterday’s meeting, out of respect to the collective bargaining process & our negotiating partner, we are going to continue to conduct negotiations with the union in private & not engage in a point-counterpoint on the specifics of either side’s proposals or the meeting process. Instead, we will work as hard as possible to reach a fair agreement by March 4. We are fully focused on that goal."
UPDATE: From Liz Mullen of Sports Business Journal: "Breaking--NFLPA made major concessions on rookie wage scale to give NFL "cost certainty” in order 2 make progress in CBA talks, source says."
If that's true, it's hard to understand why the NFL left the table so quickly.
UPDATE: ESPN's Chris Mortenson reports that talks broke down when the NFLPA suggested a 50/50 split of all the revenue the league takes in. That's a minuscule cut from what the players currently get, and apparently the NFL was angered about such a small concession. The NFL has offered a 40% share of all revenue to the players.
EARLIER: Daniel Kaplan of Sports Business Journal reports that the owners will participate in a conference call today in place of next week's canceled meeting.
EARLIER: If there's not a labor deal by March 4th, don't expect one for quite some time. SI's Jim Trotter tweets: "Two owners to me: If nothing before March 4, nothing till Labor Day at earliest."
UPDATE: The league refuses to say why today's meeting was canceled.
We still think this is bad news, but Patriots owner' Robert Kraft offers one reason for optimism, "We can get a deal done in a week."
EARLIER: After some encouraging signs this past weekend, and another set of labor meetings that began yesterday, it was starting to look like a labor deal was within reach.
But today's meeting between the NFL and NFLPA has been canceled, likely meaning there has been no progress in labor talks. Roger Goodell has even canceled next week's owners meeting, which presumably means that he has nothing new to tell them.
The clock continues to tick, and right now it appears that neither side is willing to compromise.
