Colts owner Jim Irsay doesn’t think his fellow owners, or NFL players, can afford to wait several more weeks to hammer out a labor deal.
According to Irsay, there are going to be serious problems for the league if the lockout goes beyond about six more weeks.
“There’s a window where we can get something done,’' Irsay told the Indianapolis Star, “but we really need to get something done by the Fourth of July or thereabouts so we can get in and have training camp and preseason and get ready that way. There has to be some real urgency to get this thing resolved and really have a full season with a training camp and preseason games. It would be very unfortunate if we get a deal done Oct. 1 that we could have gotten done on July 10. The losses are great if we start missing preseason games and early [regular-season] games.’'
Unfortunately, there doesn’t seem to be much urgency. Irsay may think he and Jeff Saturday could sit down for dinner and work out a deal, but just about everyone else thinks there’s a lot more to it than that -- and at this point, getting a deal done by the Fourth of July sounds optimistic.