EDEN PRAIRIE, Minn. — The on-again, off-again NFL lockout is on again.
Hours after NFL players reported to work for the first time in nearly two months, the league announced late Friday the lockout would resume immediately, thanks to an appeals court ruling in the league’s favor.
“Looks like we’re unemployed again,” tweeted Jets wide receiver Braylon Edwards, scheduled to become a free agent.
The move capped a chaotic week that began with U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson lifting the 45-day lockout on Monday. She denied the NFL’s appeal on Wednesday and the league took halting steps toward getting back to football Friday.
Then the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis granted the NFL’s request for a temporary stay of Nelson’s injunction order. The appeals court is expected to rule next week on the NFL’s request for a more permanent stay that would last through its appeal of the injunction, a process expected to take 6-8 weeks.
The NFL didn’t have to wait that long to resume the lockout, and the announcement came right after the third round of the NFL draft had ended.
Teams “have been told that the prior lockout rules are reinstated effective immediately,” NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told The Associated Press.
This all came on the day players were allowed to return to their teams’ facilities for the first time since March. Players wore smiles as they met with coaches, worked out and got a peek at their playbooks, a welcome return to normalcy in an offseason that has been anything but that.
“Nobody’s happy about any of this,” Green Bay Packers general manager Ted Thompson said. “But it is what it is. The lockout is back into effect.”
”
Nobody’s happy about any of this. But it is what it is. The lockout is back into effect.
”
– Green Bay Packers general manager Ted Thompson The appellate ruling came in a venue considered more conservative and favorable to businesses than the federal courts in Minnesota, where the collective bargaining system was established in the early 1990s and judges have generally favored players over the NFL.
The NFL’s victory, its first in this bruising court fight, was a narrow one. The 2-1 decision from a panel of the 8th Circuit was issued by Judges Steven Colloton, Kermit Bye and Duane Benton. It included a lengthy dissent from Bye, who suggested temporary stays should be issued only in emergencies.
“The NFL has not persuaded me this is the type of emergency situation which justifies the grant of a temporary stay,” Bye wrote.
Bye said the league hadn’t shown proof it would suffer irreparable harm without a lockout in place and had asked for the stay so it wouldn’t be forced to run its%2
via Court of Appeals restores NFL lockout, grants request for temporary stay – ESPN.
