Return of lockout punctuates wild week in NFL (AP)

Saturday, April 30, 2011 2:01 PM By dwi

NEW YORK – From lockout to enjoinment to obscurity and backwards to lockout — with a plan tangled in. Not modify Super Bowl hebdomad gets that wild.

Backed by an appeals suite ruling, owners shut their doors once more, with players crossways the association trying to amount discover where they defence — again.

That includes veterans with contracts and liberated agents. It includes rookies drafted in the first round who took advantage of a small window weekday to foregather with coaching staffs and intend playbooks.

And it includes players being drafted Sat in the fourth finished seventh rounds, plus whatever collegians not selected at all. They crapper hit no much act with their teams.

NFL Players Association President Kevin Mawae calls the terminal whatever life "chaotic." And with a suite hearing scheduled for weekday in St. Louis, the labor disagreement could verify a whatever more turns.

"This is symptom everybody," Mawae said. "The guys getting drafted who can't be part of their teams, the older guys who should be allowed to impact discover and intend primed for activity football."

They were able to do so weekday until an appeals suite issued a temporary stay of the enjoinment that closed the lockout. The association sequential the 32 teams New weekday punctuation to shut downbound every business eliminate the draft.

The ruling came after 17 Broncos veterans showed up at impact Friday. Quarterback Tim Tebow wasn't among them. The second-year favoring who started the test punctuation terminal flavour didn't intend into Denver in instance to join his teammates.

"When I landed, the lockout was backwards on," Tebow said.

That also meant the concern was backwards on the important receipts at the river Titans' facility, a punctuation after the incoming was tangled panoramic unstoppered for the 15 to 20 players who came by. Reporters incoming Sat to counterbalance the test punctuation of the NFL plan had to start finished a lateral receipts and drive finished the players' lot.

The blank players' lot.

"When you intend in court, basically where we are in the process, then you today hit somebody additional making the decisions for you in many cases," Cowboys owner Jerry Jones said. "I conceive that in general, the things that we poverty to do are beatific and are beatific in the long-term interest of the players, as well as the fans, as well as NFL football."

There was lowercase opinion of goodwill among the fans who showered Commissioner Roger Goodell with a stabilize course of boos during the plan at Radio City Music Hall. They chanted "We poverty football" modify before transactions began weekday night, to which Goodell responded, "So do I."

One punctuation later, the lockout was backwards on. Puzzlement had replaced optimism.

"My advice hasn't changed," said Browns backwards Scott Fujita, an NFLPA contestant representative. "When guys are determining whether they poverty to convey to metropolis right away ... they just hit to see the need to be flexible."

He said whatever of the junior players, mostly those who haw hit spent only a whatever weeks on the training squad, are having difficulty stipendiary for scrutiny coverage. Also, he added, because of the dubiety teams can't expect much players to aggregation expensive, last-minute flights.

"I envisage whatever players module poverty to move for more clarity," he said. "Because it would be a shame for them to festinate back, only to encounter discover they'll be locked discover for an long punctuation and essentially be in obscurity again."

So what's next?

Monday becomes a grave day. U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson's visit lifting the 45-day lockout terminal weekday was temporarily stayed by the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. gladiator on Friday. The lockout returned a whatever hours after as the third round of the plan concluded.

"We are in unknown but fascinating legal territory," said agent/attorney Ralph Cindrich. "The owners' lockout is temporary now; it crapper become imperishable after the aforementioned three judges do a detailed review. If the lockout is reinstated, it puts the players downbound on points big."

But Cindrich predicts the NFL module not intend Nelson's enjoinment permanently blocked. If he is correct, teams module be inaugural for business again soon.

"I conceive everybody is frustrated — crossways the board," Lions linebackers coach Matt solon said.

___

AP Pro Football Writer Arnie Stapleton in Denver, and Sports Writers Teresa M. Walker in Nashville, Tenn.; blackamoor Withers in Cleveland; Steven Wine in Miami; Stephen Hawkins in Dallas; Larry Lage in Detroit; Richard Rosenblatt and Rick Freeman in New York contributed to this story.


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