Hopefully tomorrow we will get a ruling from the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals about whether the NFL lockout will be lifted so that football as we know it can resume while lawyers fight it out. And assuming Judge Nelson's ruling is upheld, we would expect the owners to accede and open their doors without incident.
But Mike Florio has been hearing otherwise. Apparently, if the NFL doesn't get their way in appellate court, owners will shut down the league completely in an effort to get exactly what they want:
We're hearing initial rumblings pointing to the possibility that a loss by the league at the appellate level will prompt the owners to completely shut down all business operations until the players agree to a new labor deal. The thinking is that, if the owners cease all operations, the NFL would not be violating the court order because there would be no lockout. Instead, the league essentially would be going out of business - something for which the NFL repeatedly chided the union in the weeks and months preceding decertification of the NFLPA.
Oh boy, that's not good. Keep in mind that Florio is classifying this as a rumor; nothing here is close to fact just yet. Chances are he's just throwing this info out there so he looks good in the event this actually happens.
But it is a possibility. And given the fact that we're already in uncharted territory, nothing would surprise me at this point. But from a PR standpoint, this would make the league look really bad in the eyes of NFL fans.
What do you guys think?