Still a lockout, but positive glowing reports from ESPN (check out Chris Mortensen's twitter feed http://twitter.com/#!/mortreport) think a deal will be made between the owners and players, and that we'll get football this season, with the preseason mostly intact. Only sacrificemight be the HOF game, but I'm not going to lose sleep over that. Are you?

If ESPN is correct, a deal could be wrapped up by monday/tuesday, then on the 25th at the owners' meeting, they approve it (w/ idea that around that time, the NFLPA does as well) and thus Free Agency would officially begin on the 28th, three days after teams have a brief window to "officially" try to resign their clients.

HOF game is/was for August 7, the rest begin on the 11th.

(or basically, less than a month of free agency/trading/re-signing/training camp/practices/playbook meetings before the first snap.)

Ball play this year I'm sure will be alot more sloppier, awkward, uglier, and potentially alot more interesting. Countless fanboys will endlessly claim the lockout was why their team sucked it hard this year.

(Not that it matters for me, since I know the Dolphins will choke anyway.)