On Wednesday, in our nation's capital, the NFL and the NFL Players Association met in an attempt to come to a new collective bargaining agreement. The two sides are also set to meet on Thursday and will likely meet at more regular increments now that the NFL season is officially over.
Now that the current CBA expires in less than a month, the NFL and NFLPA are working harder to come to some sort of agreement to avoid a lockout in which they could possibly lose billions of dollars.
The NFL has said that if a lockout goes into effect and lasts through September, when the regular season starts, the league will lose up to $1 billion in gross revenues. If regular-season games are canceled, the league says the financial hit would be an additional $400 million per week.
There are a few major issues left that have kept the two sides from coming to an agreement already, but there are four major issues that are creating a kink in negotiations, including the NFL's desire to go from 16 regular-season games to 18.
The major issues on the table are health benefits for players after they retire, how to split about $9 billion in annual revenues, creating a new rookie salary scale, and the NFL's desire to increase the regular season from 16 games to 18.
There are 22 days left before the CBA expires on March 4. Those 22 days, in which no professional football will be played, are likely the most important days in the NFL's recent history and for it's future of remaining the most popular sports leagues in America.