CHAMPAIGN, Ill. - It's fourth and long in the labor stalemate between NFL owners and players, and the chances of either side engineering a John Elway-style last-minute comeback are slim, says a University of Illinois law and labor expert.
Michael LeRoy says the most likely scenario has the owners running out the clock and locking out the players starting Thursday at midnight.
"The parties could do a last-minute deal, but that would be a real Hail Mary," said LeRoy, a professor of law and of labor and employment relations at Illinois. "The owners signaled their intentions as far back as 2008 by exercising their right to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement, so it's really not surprising that we're on the brink of a work stoppage."
LeRoy, who specializes in employment and labor law, says the contentious nature of the negotiations will likely be a real challenge for the players' association new leader, DeMaurice Smith, who replaced former Oakland Raider Hall of Famer Gene Upshaw, who died in 2008.
Upshaw may have been a divisive figure among players, who viewed him as being too cozy with management, but he had the negotiating skill and experience to make tough compromises with owners and take the heat from both the players and the media, LeRoy said.
"Smith is really going to have to prove his toughness, and that's also going to be a factor that inhibits a quick settlement," he said. "At this point he's just untested, and that gives the owners one more reason to bargain tough on their side of the table."
Although football is the most popular and profitable sport in the U.S., taking in an estimated $9 billion per year, LeRoy says NFL owners may have some legitimate business concerns that will likely need to be addressed before a compromise is reached.
"The small market teams are consistently unable to sign the free-agent talent that the big market teams do," he said. "That indicates that there are some problems with the business of football, but we just don't know how much trouble, because their finances aren't disclosed."
Owners are tired of being burned by many bad free-agent contracts as well as the extraordinary signing bonuses demanded by untested rookies and their money-hungry agents.
"All the owners can do is cut a guy, eat a contract and say 'Never again,' " LeRoy said. "And that's part of what we're seeing in this negotiation. In effect, the owners want the new labor agreement to protect them from themselves."
But the players have an ironic and potent argument - " 'Why should we be penalized for your stupidity?' " LeRoy said.
"The owners can charge whatever they want for tickets, parking, concessions," he said. "There's no cap on their revenue except for market forces, so why should there be a cap on what players make, especially with tens of millions of fans the world over? The Super Bowl is the biggest TV show on Earth, so the players aren't buying it when the owners cry poor."
According to LeRoy, the main difference between the strike of 1987 and a potential labor stoppage in 2011 is the timing of the negotiations.
"Back then, you were at the end of a contract, as you are now, and you had similar issues of free agency and revenue sharing," he said.
"But the players held the cards by going into the '87 season without a contract, and then went out on strike. And even though they held all the cards, they still lost that strike. After five or six weeks, players started crossing the picket line. So you had a mixture of replacement players and crossovers playing in regular season games. The union absolutely folded at that point."
The owners, apparently, have only strengthened their negotiating resolve since the 1987 dispute.
"Compared to 1987, the owners are employing a much smarter strategy," LeRoy said. "The owners are banking on the fact that players will reach a point of caving early in the spring or summer rather than in July and August when training camps start. The players of this era aren't exactly known for their conservative spending habits, and they are already starting to feel the heat from a work stoppage."
Financial hardship among the players may be the reason why the players' union has considered the head-scratching move of decertifying the union this week. If the players were to temporarily dismantle the union, that would give them the right to file antitrust litigation under the Sherman Act against the owners, LeRoy says. It would also possibly allow them to play - and collect a paycheck - next season.
"It's crazy in the sense that it's a radical departure from what any other union would do in that circumstance," he said. "No other union would ever consider doing something like that. But it's not crazy given where the players' association is situated right now. Their hope would be that decertification would put pressure on the NFL to reach an agreement."
But it's a high-stakes move that has the potential to backfire on the players.
"I think the decertification tactic is an unrealistic hope for the players' association," LeRoy said. "Labor law has long recognized the right of employers to form an association to meet the strength, size and power of a labor union. So I don't see it as being a strong or necessarily wise move for what the players' association wants to accomplish."
Another factor in the negotiating process could be the public perception of players.
"Whatever the public thinks about the players will inevitably factor into the negotiations," LeRoy said. "It would be a stretch to say that the average fan can relate to the players - or the owners, for that matter. But if you look back at the 1987 strike, the average fan said: 'Enough already. I'll watch replacement football players.' Now, they didn't fill up the stadiums, but enough fans attended to make it a pivotal point in the dispute. The players, no doubt, are cognizant of that."
LeRoy says the owners also hold an advantage in that, under labor law, it's 100 percent legal to do two things: lock out workers in support of the employer's bargaining demands, and hire temporary replacements.
"If you think about it, everybody in football is a temporary worker - even Aaron Rodgers," he said. "One good shot to the head and you're out of the game. So the owners have to be thinking, 'Do we have to stay shutdown throughout the season or could we operate with replacements?' The answer is, you can operate with replacements. It's ugly and highly contentious from a public relations standpoint, but it is permissible."
LeRoy is writing a legal casebook titled "Collective Bargaining in Sports and Entertainment."