And that was the interesting part.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit listened carefully and the three-judge panel will issue its ruling "in due course," according to Judge Kermit E. Bye, which is a real relief. It was starting to look like this thing was going to drag out.
Sometime, somewhere this summer, all the legal wrangling and courtroom hopping will lead to something other than a haystack of billable hours. It is expected that the three judges in St. Louis will split, 2-1, as they have on previous rulings in this case, with the Republican appointees backing big business and the Democratic appointee supporting organized labor - even if it really isn't (wink, wink) organized any longer.
That part is predictable, and the lockout will remain in force. What happens after that isn't as clear, but the players are betting everything that their move to decertify the union - while continuing to operate as one - will make it possible to win an antitrust suit against the league. If that ever happened, or if the threat of it was real, the NFL would make it rain money until the players were drenched.
Unfortunately for the players, no one - except perhaps NFL Players Association leader DeMaurice Smith - expects that to actually work. It is a flying machine that has been tried before without much success.
Still, it is the only play in the playbook and they are going to run it. As long as there is a longshot of a chance that the court system will see it their way, the players still have some leverage. It is not enough of a chance, however, or enough leverage, to force the NFL to negotiate a real contract settlement.
