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The online gambling websites have posted NFL lockout odds with the fear that these may be the only odds available for the upcoming NFL season should a strike occur. Bookmaker.com is the latest to offer these odds.
The players themselves seem optimistic.
The Sporting News posted a few opinions that have been offered up by various players across the Net:
"I think it'll be football pretty soon. I definitely think it'll be business as usual in another month or so. I think it'll be over with. I don't see why it shouldn't. ... I think we're only at this point because that was the end of the labor agreement. I don't think it was a bad deal out there. The owners make 30-plus million dollars after everyone's paid every single year and those teams can be in families for centuries. So I don't see what the real problem is." -- free-agent RB Fred Taylor via the Florida Times-Union
"My opinion on this thing is, and obviously my hope, is that we win in April. And if we win in April but the owners say, ‘Ok look, we lost the TV case, we lost this case, let's get a settlement going, let's get whatever we've got to do to get a product back and get something settled.' Or if they appeal it and it goes on appeal, at least in July you get to that point." -- Colts C and NFLPA executive committee member Jeff Saturday via NFL Network
In an interview with the NFL Network, Indianapolis Colts center Jeff Saturday, a member of the NFL Players Association executive committee, said:
"If the courts agree with us, which we feel like they would, football will be played. Now it will be played under whatever system they want it to be played under, but we’re willing to take that chance just to play. I didn’t feel like as a player our fans would put up with a lockout where we’re missing games. I didn’t think our players would put up with it, and I didn’t think our owners could tolerate it. As I sat in all of those meetings, as you hear everybody’s conversation, you realized what we were really going to miss out on, and that’s our fans. Those are everybody who pays our check, and to push this out where they don’t get football, or they don’t get preseason games, or they’re worried about seeing the actual games, I didn’t feel like was a good bet for us. And so timing, it really had to happen there.”
The NFL owners and players are negotiating a new collective bargaining agreement. The two sides are at odds about how to divide the league's annual $9 billion of revenue. The NFL has not had a work stoppage since 1987.
- Don Shapiro, Gambling911.com
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