Updated Title: 8th Circuit Court Grants Stay, Lockout Reinstated

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by artmonkforhallofamein07

The question is whether or not any team wold sign any agents as they would be crossing some kind of "party line". Are the politics of this as such that they would stand united in not signing any guys until the labor agreement is in place.

It is interesting as it would give a team reading to break party lines first dibs on the best FA.

I'm no lawyer, but with my limited understanding, I think such a move to band together and avoid signing free agents would be considered collusion and would violate US antitrust laws.

It's OK if some teams elect not to sign free agents. But it's not OK if all teams get together and say hey nobody sign anybody until we get what we want. That's effectively the same thing as locking the players out, which is exactly what they were just ordered to stop doing.

In my view, free agency is open for business NOW. It's just all the NFL teams are looking around for guidance. They're all basically wondering "OK, WTF do we do now?"

Unfortunately for the NFL (and fortunately for us as Redskin fans), the answer is free agency bonanza with no salary cap in place. It's just going to take some time for everyone to realize that.