The NFL lockout might finally be nearing an end. The owners and the players—the two actors in this summer's even-longer production of Strange Interlude—have reportedly agreed to most of a CBA that pleases both parties, thanks in part to a recent decision by the owners to stop pursuing a right of first refusal for teams with limbo-bound free agents. (Instead they'll get three days to negotiate, whereupon ESPN will cry hot tears of joy.)
With the financial parts of the agreement finally, uh, agreed, it seems like we might finally have a real NFL season ahead of us, just in time to get to watch some really boring NFL preseason action. But I've lost the ability to believe in the lockout ever ending—I just can't do it.
So far as I can tell by now, the NFL is some kind of collective-bargaining sport in which teams of lawyers, along with old rich men and young rich men, compete to earn the best short-term deal for themselves while playing a game of chicken with the long-term health of that very sport. I could be wrong, though—I dimly remember a goofily-shaped ball...