NFL, Players Disagree on Who Should Oversee Talks

[Omaha Steve]

Source: AP

By HOWARD FENDRICH

WASHINGTON (AP) - A day after the judge handling the NFL lockout lawsuit urged the sides to go "back to the table," the players and owners both expressed a willingness to do so. The hitch: Each offered to meet for talks in a setting the other finds unpalatable.

A lawyer representing MVP quarterbacks Tom Brady, Peyton Manning and other players suing the NFL wrote U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson on Thursday to say they're willing to engage in mediation overseen by her federal court in St. Paul, Minn.

And the NFL sent its own letter Thursday to lawyers for the players, proposing to resume talks about 1,000 miles from that courthouse, instead returning to the Washington office of federal mediator George Cohen, two people familiar with the case told The Associated Press. The people spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to reveal the letter's contents.

Since filing suit in Minnesota on March 11, the players repeatedly have said they only are interested in meeting with the league to discuss settling the litigation. And since the lockout began at midnight later that night, the NFL repeatedly has said it only is interested in returning to mediated bargaining.


Read more: http://sports.excite.com/news/04072011/v6429.html

[JackRiddler]

1. If things go right, and there's no season, we can have a revolution instead.

;)