If you thought that the NFL Owners would refuse to negotiate with the NFL Players Association, choosing instead to pursue litigation, evidently you were wrong.
The Players have chosen to decertify, a decision that came just an hour before today's final deadline in which the current CBA was to expire. This decertification means that the Players will be walking away today from what appears to be a very legitimate offer from the Owners.
The offer, as reported by NFLLabor.com, includes a financial proposal that would split the difference in the proposed salary cap for 2011, and would eventually raise the cap to the level that the NFLPA suggested for the 2014 season. The NFL offer also contains a "rookie cap" rather than a "rookie wage scale" that would reportedly ensure that players drafted in rounds 2-7 would earn as much or more than they are currently earning. Among other items that seem to favor the Players, the NFL Owners also agreed that the league schedule would remain at 16 games for at least the next two years.
This certainly sounds to us like a reasonable offer, but we also know that there's another side to this story.
A complete synopsis of the Owners' offer can be found here.