We've been talking about the optimism surrounding the NFL lockout and that the owners and players are making enough progress on a new CBA that some believe it will be coming within several weeks.
Now it's time to bring back the pessimism. ESPN's Adam Schefter reports that Tuesday's talks "almost blew up" after the lawyers entered the room. The NFLPA's DeMaurice Smith had to tell his lawyers to "stand down" at one point as tensions grew.
Schefter says that, while progress is being made, there's still a lot of work to do.
Multiple sources familiar with the talks said progress is being made, but they cautioned that there's "a lot of drama and a lot of room for mistakes left." To say this is going to be done in two weeks, one source said, "is borderline insane."
That's OK. We'll still hold out some optimism that progress is being made. The past week has brought us a barrage of stories indicating serious progress was made so those on the inside had to put things in perspective regarding the status of the talks.
Let's hope this thing gets done sooner rather than later.