… and the NFL lockout is back on again.

As expected, the NFL appealed to the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals to get a injunction placed against Judge Nelson’s prior ruling ending the NFL lockout.  So for the time being, the lockout is back in place as the court reviews the brief filed by the NFL.  ESPN has kindly provided a link to the 18 page legal brief here.  Now an interesting point which came up in the legal brief is that the NFL is claiming that the NFLPA and its members (the players) did not bargain in good faith.  They show some quotes and citations that state that the players were happy with the union and only dissolved it as an “Ace up the sleeve” in their battle against the owners.  While the NFL won a 2-1 vote for a temporary stay, the same judges will have to come back and decide whether a longer injunction can be put into place.

The NFL has also tried to make the case that the players are actually enjoying the lockout, after Ray Lewis and Wes Welker stated to the media that they were happy to have more free time because of the lockout.  And that because of this, the lockout is not putting the players into greater harm.  Now the argument may be legally sound, but it would seem that just because two higher profile players are happy, doesn’t mean those 2nd string tight-ends or the punter is going to be happy with the longer lockout.

I’ll keep updating as more news on this is released.  One of the big losers at the moment are the undrafted players, as they are the ones who will be without contracts and the ability of knowing if they will be invited to camps or even have a shot at playing in the NFL this year.  There may be a big influx of players to Arena Football and possibly the Canadian Football League if the lockout continues.

Gambling on… Pee Wee Football

I was watching Outside the Lines on ESPN, and I saw an exposé they did on gambling on Pee Wee football games in South Florida.  I have provided a link to the story here.  What is interesting is that the amount of money being bet on little kids playing football is quite large sums.  Regular season games for the league which ESPN investigated had as much as $20,000 on the line, and the league Super Bowl championship game could net someone about $75,000.  Who would make such bets?  It turns out that the area has a lot of criminal elements and drug dealers who are willing to gamble, and with so much money on the line, there of course has been attempts to pay off coaches, parents, and even the players themselves.

Its even at the point where some of the gamblers will look for kids who are star players and have only a single parent.  The gamblers will then offer to pay the mother money and give the kid shoes and clothes as long as he plays for a certain team.  The article linked above notes that players and their parents often get between $5,000 to $10,000 over a season, while the gamblers can make up to $20,000 a game for 8 to 10 games a season.

Obviously this type of gambling is illegal, but really nothing is being done about it.  Gamblers exchange money at the game, just feet away from uniformed police officers, who stand there doing nothing.  The league president says its a minor crime, yet one of the coaches was found to even be exchanging money with fans in the stands during a game.  The police claim there has been no complaints, so they continue to do nothing about it.  After this piece, maybe some action will be taken.

Either way, I was pretty disgusted by everything going on with this league, it really displays the dark side of when criminal behavior and gambling gets mixed into sport.  Especially, youth sport.