For a little over a month, the Falcons have tried to conduct their business as usual during the NFL lockout.
When the offseason strength-and-conditioning program was supposed to start, they flocked en masse to a gym in Cumming.
When the minicamp was supposed to start, they started showing up in mass at a suburban park that has Field Turf.
But, with a key hearing set for June 3 in St. Louis, you can sense that the troops are starting to get a little edgy about possibly missing part of the 2011 season.
“I think the longer that it goes on, the tougher it becomes,” quarterback Matt Ryan said.
Last week, the annual rookie symposium became the first casualty of the lockout. The time is getting closer to where valuable free-agency time, training-camp dates and exhibition games may get sliced off the calendar. The prospective free-agency group is where you can find some discord that is starting to bubble up to the surface.
Normally, the placid and insightful Jason Snelling wouldn’t go on a national radio show and basically start slamming his cleats into the microphone.
Snelling, a four-year veteran, wasn’t optimistic when he went on SiriusXM NFL Radio to chat with Pat Kirwan and Tim Ryan.
“We kind of wonder at some point, what are we really fighting for?” Snelling said. “Do we want to play, do we want to just keep these things through the courts? I know that a lot of guys may feel like going through the courts and taking it to the end and waiting for a judge to make a ruling may work, but after they make another ruling, we still don’t have a collective bargaining agreement.”
Snelling could be an unrestricted free agent when a labor agreement is reached. He’s understandably a bit antsy about his future contract.
However, Ryan believes that support for the NFL and the trade association is still strong.
“I’ve got faith in the union and I have faith in the league that both sides will come to an agreement,” Ryan said. “We’ll see what happens on June 3 with the ruling. We still have time to get this thing done. I think we’ve got the right people on both sides to get it done. We’ll be playing when we need to play.”
Rookie Julio Jones, who joined the seven-on-seven drills last week, didn’t lose much sleep over the rookie symposium being canceled.
“I’m just really ready to play some football, but this is out of our hands,” Jones said.
Even if the owners win a ruling upholding the lockout, there is no certainty that negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement will start in earnest. But Jones plans to continue to prepare like there will be a season.
“You have to have that mindset because nobody knows when the lockout is going to be lifted,” Jones said. “So that’s why we are out here now, doing seven-on-seven drills. We are trying to put it together and stay in shape.”
He looks forward to spending some time with Falcons receiver Roddy White, who has visited a couple of the workouts.
“I do, just so that I can learn from him,” Jones said. “I was used to get double teams in college, and Roddy has been getting double-teamed, too. So we both can look forward to trying to get some one-on-one matchups.”
Oakland defensive end Richard Seymour gave out of his pocket to pay for food and accommodations for teammates to participate in a minicamp last week at Competitive Edge Sports in Duluth. About 40 members of the Raiders were on hand for their workouts and scrimmages.
They had a couple of team dinners and went out on Lake Lanier for some fun. Seymour, a six-time Pro Bowler and three-time Super Bowl champion, considered it money well spent as the Raiders try to make it through the lockout.
Like Ryan, Seymour isn’t panicking. “It’s a negotiation,” said Seymour, who played at Georgia. “I’m sure at the end of the day when both sides want a fair deal, we’ll be able to come to that. Until then, we’ll keep working.”
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