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NFL Mediation Halting Leads To More Questions About 2011 Season Obviously no one wants there to be a lockout: not the players, not the owners, and certainly not the fans. But there might be a twinge of silver lining in all this mess. I think the most likely scenario will be the players and owners continuing to bicker and quarrel over money on into the summer, but when both sides start to lose paychecks during the preseason, they both start to get a little desperate and hammer out an agreement--even if it's a one-year agreement--just so they can get back to work: the prospects of losing tens of millions of dollars in the first week of the regular season should be enough of a deterrent to let the lockout continue into mid-September. Clearly the game would suffer if there was no mini-camp, not training camp, as rookies and new head coaches would be basically working in the dark from the get go. And there would certainly be given some consideration to pushing everything back, maybe eliminating the extra week in between the Super Bowl and conference championships. But let's say the lockout continues into the first week of the preseason. That might not be so bad. READ MORE: The Best Acquisition in the History of Each NFL Team The preseason is already too long and we don't need four weeks of preseason football--already irritable season ticket holders might like the cancellation of those two weeks so they don't have to pay full price for meaningless games. And while the first few weeks of the regular season might end up being sloppy and less-than impressive--especially from rookies or teams with new head coaches like Denver, Carolina, and San Francisco--isn't there a chance that by November, December, and into the playoffs teams are fresher, less banged up and are peeking? Maybe that's wishful thinking, but it could lead to one of the best postseasons ever and a great Super Bowl....perhaps that's enough to make fans forget about everything that's taken place since mid-March. But probably not.
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