Blind Mans Bluff

Over the last 100 or so days football prognosticators everywhere have provided their insight as to how or when the NFL Lockout will end. Much like the game of roulette, they stacked their chips on certain days with the blind hope that their number will come in just so they could earn the right to say, “I told you so”. Does anyone really know? Not likely.
In the past few days the majority of the sports world has been clamoring over the reports that July 21st would be the day that the NFL & NFLPA would ratify a new agreement ushering in a new era of collective bargaining between the two. But what real evidence is there to suggest this is true? Reports from both ESPN’s Adam Schefter and Chris Mortensen suggest that because transition rules from the lockout have been issued that perhaps both sides have worn down to the point of exhaustion and that all that is left is to cross a few T’s and dot a few I’s. If it were that simple, wouldn’t the players be in camp by now? Wouldn’t we be talking about free agent signings and rookie hold outs?
Mortensen was bombarded with criticism yesterday because of his reports regarding the tentative date for settlement and quickly softened his stance by stating that “Nobody has reported anything about a tentative agreement being in place.” When I pressed him about his implying of a settlement from his earlier article, he fire back that “No, we reported there was a growing optimism that a deal could be ratified by 7/21 but still hung up on rookie system”. In fact, in Mortensen’s own article he reported that some of the player negotiators still feel that their efforts to come to the middle “have not been reciprocated” implying that negations are still contentious and could blow up at any minute.
If that is what is keeping the lockout in place, then why announce to the world that July 21st would be the day that we could start talking about football again? No, because no one truly knows when this will happen. I respect and appreciate the work that Adam Schefter and Chris Mortensen do. Time and again they have provided us with insight and knowledge in ways that that seemingly no one else can, but the science of predicting the end of the lockout can only be perfected with hindsight.