Written by Chris Hutchison

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From Peter King's 5/9/11 Monday Morning QB:

"On Sunday, Mike Florio of ProFootballTalk.com reported he's hearing "initial rumblings'' that if the league loses its appeal to the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals and is forced to open its doors for business sometime this summer, the owners may completely shut down business operations until the players cave and agree to a labor deal. I reached out to a couple of ownership sources Sunday night; both said this was the first they'd heard of such a plan. We'll see if it grows legs as the month goes on. We're still weeks away from the June 3 St. Louis appeals court hearing that could end or extend the lockout."

It appears that the Owners are bound and determined to not lose this thing, and might take the nuclear option if the Players win their day in court. 

What would the result be?  Well, increased litigation and litigation confusion, for one thing.  A longer period of time before the labor mess is solved - definitely.  Assured Mutual Destruction?  Maybe.

And probably some enterprising people will try to scrabble together an alternate league to fill the void, a league that will have almost zero chance of forming in any conprehensive structure by the time Fall rolls around.  Yawn at the Las Vegas Golddiggers and the Raleigh/Durham Tobacconists.

From the outside, this whole thing is like watching a friend's marriage spiral out of control - the parties get too emotional and take things to the "next" level when they didn't have to go there and the next thing you know lawyers are getting rich while daddy tells the kids that mommy is a "Whore" while mommy tells them that daddy is "Prick" and they can't even show up to the same damn soccer game to watch their kids because they hate each other so damn much and it all could've been fixed had they just sat down and realized that no one was going to "win" and worked things out as satisfactorally as they could.

Oh, and, yes, we're the kids in that scenario.

Stay together for the kids, you bastards.