In three years, about the time Falcons rookie quarterback Matt Ryan and a rebuilding franchise could be hitting their stride, the NFL may face a work stoppage.

All 32 of the league's owners voted Tuesday to opt out of the current labor pact in 2011, an agreement reached with the players' union two years ago. Should a new collective bargaining agreement not be reached by the 2011 season, play could be affected.

"This is a very clear sign that the ownership doesn't believe this deal is working," NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said. "The economics are not working for the owners."

Goodell said expenses brought on by the current economy, stadium and operating costs and teams' inability to recoup bonus money from suspended players were among the reasons to opt out of the deal. The Falcons' inability to recover any more than $3 million of the nearly $20 million in bonus money they sought from suspended/imprisoned quarterback Michael Vick was cited as a drawback by owners.

"That's money that could go to players who are playing," Goodell said.

The owners' decision came in a meeting at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel in Buckhead.

The threat of a work stoppage is not setting off any immediate alarms, and the NFL will operate as it has over the next two seasons. Things could change in 2010, because there would be no salary cap that season.

That would allow some teams to spend lavishly on free agents while others could choose to operate on a streamlined budget, setting up a potential competitive imbalance.

"We expected it," NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw said in a conference call. "We started talking to players last fall. All this means is we'll have football until 2010 and not until 2012. That being said, we'll just move ahead. This just starts the clock ticking. We will have some deadlines that are there. Then we go to no man's land in 2011 and there are no rules."

The reason for opting out of the collective bargaining agreement now — owners and the players association each could have opted out by early November — was that owners didn't need any more time to figure out things weren't going to get better. The early break also starts the clock to begin talks with the players association to form a new pact.

For the Falcons, any news of the potential stifling of progress could be unwelcome. The franchise has been deconstructed after a season of off-field discord and on-field failure. Ticket sales have been slow and the team has orchestrated a massive campaign to re-

establish trust in the fan base.

Even so, team owner Arthur Blank, who was instrumental in getting the 2006 labor deal reached, voted to pull out of the current agreement.

In other developments at the league meetings:

• Indianapolis was awarded the 2012 Super Bowl. Tampa (2009), Miami (2010) and Dallas (2011) will host the next three Super Bowls.

• Owners discussed adding a 17th regular-season game and reducing preseason to three games from four.

• Teams could be fined for players being suspended for violating the player conduct policy. The fine would be in line with the player's salary, and the more player suspensions a team incurs, the more discipline it could face. The fines would not affect players who violate the league's substance-abuse policy.