As the face of the NFL Network, and as a comically gifted broadcaster who has spent the last four months trying to put the best face on a strained situation, Rich Eisen can't wait to make football fans smile by telling them the lockout is over.

And when he hears that news himself – possibly in the next couple of weeks – Eisen plans to celebrate less like Chad Ochocinco(notes) in the end zone and more like Dallas Mavericks star Dirk Nowitzki in the bowels of American Airlines Arena.

"I'll probably just go find a corner and kneel down and just spend some time with myself, like Dirk after he won the [NBA] title," Eisen said Tuesday, his voice tinged with hopeful anticipation. "I'm going to need to be alone. It's been a long and trying process, trying to assure fans that the lights aren't out, even as the doors were locked.

"It's been an interesting experience – and I wouldn't wish it on anyone."

For all of the humor Eisen brings to his role as the host of NFL Total Access and other

The world's most powerful professional sports league is in its fourth month of labor-related lethargy, with NFL owners and players locked in a multi-billion-dollar stare down. Anxious for free agency and weary of the war of words, the eyes of football fans around the world are starting to glaze over.

In other words, the owners and players have you right where they want you.

Despite a breakdown in communication and trust that boiled over last week, the two sides are closer to an agreement than many people realize – perhaps than even some of the people involved realize. That the respective negotiating teams hung in amid the negativity and held a marathon session Thursday and a shorter one on Friday was a deceptively positive sign.

As the owners and players prepare to reconvene this week in New York City following the Fourth of July holiday, a deal is very much there for the making. And if NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, NFL Players Association executive director DeMaurice Smith and

Three weeks ago, as Roger Goodell and DeMaurice Smith broke bread in a midtown Manhattan restaurant, the leaders of the NFL’s warring labor factions projected a sense of mutual optimism. During a negotiation session earlier that day at a Long Island hotel, Smith and player representatives had suggested a new, “all-revenue” model for splitting up the billions of dollars generated annually by America’s most profitable professional sports league, and Goodell and the owners across the table seemed to embrace the idea enthusiastically.

Late Thursday afternoon, after another frustrating interchange between the two negotiating teams at a Minneapolis-area law firm that ultimately lasted past midnight, it was clear that labor peace – and an end to the lockout imposed by the owners on March 12 – won’t be achieved anywhere close to as seamlessly as numerous reports in recent weeks have suggested. Not only is the very definition of total revenue being debated, but each side also believes the other

CROFTON, Md. – The big man sits inside his parked Escalade for a good 30 minutes, speakers thumping, eyes hidden beneath designer shades.

Is Darnell Dockett(notes), the Arizona Cardinals' Pro Bowl defensive tackle, psyching himself up for another grueling workout, the likes of which he and many of his current and prospective NFL peers are enduring on a regular and unrelenting basis during this highly unusual offseason?

Inside Future of Fitness, the studio co-owned and founded by strength-and-conditioning trainer Mac James, Dockett's partners-in-grind aren't so convinced.

"He does this every damn day," Minnesota Vikings tight end Visanthe Shiancoe(notes) said on an early May morning, shaking his head. "He's got to make a big entrance, you know … "

Shiancoe's playful diss draws big laughs, but his admiration for Dockett's dedication is obvious. For one thing, anyone who regularly participates in the potpourri of weight-training, metabolic conditioning, resistance exercises, speed work

As the NFL's players and owners work toward a new collective bargaining agreement that could end the lockout before the Fourth of July, Howie Roseman sits anxiously in his office at the NovaCare Complex, itching for the fireworks to begin.

To say that Roseman, the Philadelphia Eagles' second-year general manager, is geeked up for the impending start of the league year is like labeling Cleveland sports fans as "pleased" that LeBron James flopped in the NBA Finals. Armed with an expendable quarterback, Kevin Kolb(notes), that numerous teams covet and secure in the conviction that the Michael Vick(notes)-led Eagles can contend for a Super Bowl championship, Roseman can't wait to start wheeling and dealing in rapid-fire fashion.

"We need to get this [labor dispute] settled," Roseman said lightheartedly Tuesday via speakerphone as he drove home from work. "I'm ready for some action – right now."

Howie Roseman
(AP Photo)

Part of a new wave of young, eager general managers receptive to

If you're unclear on what provoked the NFL labor war that, on Friday, sees owners and players waging their latest battle at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit in St. Louis, the answer is surprisingly simple: This is a money grab by the owners. The bottom line is that the folks who sign the checks are looking to improve their bottom line.

Whatever your views on whether this money grab is justified, a product of greed or somewhere in between, its existence is unassailable. The owners unanimously opted out of the collective bargaining agreement in 2008, began preparing for a lockout this spring and, when the NFL Players Association balked at a late offer that would have significantly reduced their share of total revenues and decertified, followed through on the threat. Their lawyers will now try to convince the appellate court to overturn a ruling by U.S. District Court judge Susan Nelson ending the lockout.

As Bill Belichick would say, It is what it is.

Yet even those of

I have a message for the Carolina Panthers players who thought hiring a uniformed cop to keep reporters away from Tuesday's workout session at a Charlotte high school was a good idea. And against all logic, I'm going to deliver it without the benefit of police protection:

You guys are acting like morons – and wimps.

Yep, I said it, and I'm prepared to own it, because it's my job to enunciate opinions and accept the consequences. Then again, I'm actually being paid for my endeavors, unlike Panthers workout organizer Jordan Gross(notes) and his locked-out teammates, who nonetheless behaved as though the flow of information from day one of their faux minicamp was as privileged as their condescending owner, Jerry Richardson.

This just in, guys: Nobody wants to steal any of your secrets, unless they're looking for a primer on how not to play professional football. And by locking out reporters – and, by extension, your fans – in the midst of a lockout, you are damaging your cause on numerous

BETHESDA, Md. – Back in March of 2009, when he was elected to succeed the late Gene Upshaw as the NFL Players Association's executive director, DeMaurice Smith considered himself the ultimate union man.

Two years later, when Smith announced that the NFLPA would decertify and become a trade association after negotiations with league owners on a new collective bargaining agreement broke down, most people assumed that this was a temporary tactical maneuver designed to allow players to seek leverage through the legal system. The NFL has enunciated this argument in a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board, charging that the NFLPA's move to decertify and become a trade association was a sham.

Smith addresses the media in March following the NFLPA's decertification.
(AP Photo)

Smith, however, insists that he has embraced decertification as an enduring state of existence, much in the same way that Upshaw did in the early '90s before – at the NFL's insistence – he agreed to