There's a lot of good stuff in the recent article by Andrew Brandt at the National Football Post, but two items caught my attention.
I wonder if players will organize workouts again in 2012? For all the media grief the Green Bay Packers have gotten for not organizing significant player workouts, future offseasons might look just the same. From NFP:
Coaches will not be pleased with this new reality, as the new offseason will not look dramatically different than the locked-out one we are having now...
The reality, however, is that most players would rather be with their private trainers and/or facilities in preferred locations around the country. That is not a slight to the teams’ staff; it is the reality of the long offseason prior to the strenuous grind of the season.
Also, the news of negotiations in Minneapolis should be taken as a sign that they are working out the details, and it looks like they have the framework in place. From NFP:
There are a lot of moving parts here. The good news is that multiple NFL and NFLPA officials that are part of working groups are in Minnesota -- "supervised" by Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith -- hashing out issues regarding the revenue split, the cash minimum, rookie salaries, offseason workouts (or lack thereof, see below), free agency, etc. The group now in Minnesota is the group that needs to do the nuts and bolts of the CBA; that in itself is good news.
There are a few other interesting points, and the entire article is worth a read. Unfortunately there's been word of a set back in negotiations since he wrote his article.