What is the whole lockout of the NFL officials about anyway? What any professional disagreement between two sides is usually always about – money. And with the NFL reporting record revenues year after year after year, what’s the hold up here?

What needs to be understood is that it’s not all on Roger Goddell. The commissioner serves at the behest of the owners. He is in effect the employee of the owners, so fundamentally the buck literally stops with them, not him. But in no way can the commissioner not suggest to ownership that what is happening on the field is shredding away the integrity of the game, little by little by little.

Is it about upholding the integrity of the game or is it about being stingy with a little bit of money? Obviously its about greed. And what is the cost of this greed? Turning the most principled, ethical and virtuous sports league in our nation into a circus.

And what may be most embarrassing to the NFL about the whole situation is that people are tuning in not to see a quality product – which is what made the league as popular as it has become, but rather to see what kind of debacle will happen next. People are still tuning in alright, but they are they are tuning in now for all the wrong reasons – to see the equivalent of a reality TV show or a WWE match, not a football game.

How about player safety? Hasn’t that been an integral point importance since Goddell took the reins from Paul Tagliabue in 2006? Wasn’t that a major point of contention when the players and owners were working out their differences during this most recent lockout of the NFLPA?

It is clear and transparent that it isn’t about player safety. Having division III, junior college and high school officials working NFL games is about the most dangerous thing that could possibly be done in regards to protecting the players.

It’s the equivalent of having a junior life guards watch over a swimming pool filled with adapted-aquatic seniors or people with disabilities. It’s the same thing as having mall security guards thrown into a state penitentiary to handle the inmates. Plain and simple, one thing just doesn’t go with the other and it is being proven to be beyond hasty and reckless.

The bottom line – I see the debacle in Seattle as the straw that broke the camel’s back. If the recent news and speculation about developments between the two sides are any indication of the near future, we might not be too far away from getting some order back to this great game of ours.

Let’s hope for the sake of doing what makes sense, what is logical and what is just straight-up the right thing to do, a deal gets done soon. Its just too bad nothing ever really seems to end up about those things these days, does it?

College football extended the bowl season well into the new year and the NCAA Tournament followed-suit by adding an extra week. Now, I’m officially bummed out about how much I’ve heard about the NFL this offseason. In a sports world where over-saturation is the norm, the NFL lockout has had one unintended consequence: that I had to hear about it all freaking summer. Aren’t Chris Mortensen, John Clayton, and Adam Schefter supposed to go into hibernation in the summertime? Everything is wrong with having to see them throughout May, June, and July.

Of course, the ironic part of my change of heart is that it happened while the league was officially shut down for the whole summer.

One thing I really like about sports is seasonality. The promise of a new season is one of the most exciting things, partly because I haven’t thought about a particular sport much during the off-season.

Spring training is appealing because baseball hasn’t been around for a number of months. I get excited about the Lakers early in the season because NBA teams always look a little different and new.

For my taste, looking forward to seeing how Steve Blake and Matt Barnes fit in to the rotation is made better by the surprise that Shannon Brown improved his jumper and the disappointment that Theo Ratliff has replaced Rony Turiaf as a backup post player.

In the NFL, where I don’t actually have a favorite team, there are only 16 games. The scarcity of games and weeks of the season is the NFL’s biggest asset. Every game matters so much. Just like the NCAA tournament, the NFL has cheapened its weekends by having more during-the-week games during the year, but it hadn’t reached my “sick of it” threshold before the past two weeks.

Like its former poster-child, Brett Favre, the NFL is not something I want to see on ESPN. As of now, I’m officially sick of it.

Until the first week of the NFL regular season starts, I want to see stories about the Pirates’ run. I want to see stories about NBA players signing oversees. I would love to see something about the MLS season. What I don’t want is wall-to-wall coverage of when each team reports to training camp. Because I don’t care.

Just tell me when the season starts and I’ll go over the Dave’s house for the NFL Sunday ticket, cold beverages in-tow. The ability of a fan to “make a day of it” is what has made the NFL great. Sundays will still be good. But I just don’t feel the same after this, the summer of Schefter.

For many of us, Summer means little to our fansmanship. As much as we try to appreciate America’s great past-time, Baseball is too slow and monotonous. We are seeking more than just an old timers’ game; more than five dollar English Leather cologne.

It is supposed to be the fun-time of the year. Many of us get time off of work to visit the world, sit on the beach, party with friends. Most importantly for us bachelors (and non-bachelors if we’re honest) the quadruple B’s are out in full force–blond, bronzed, bikini’d, bodies.

Head out to Avila Beach or Pismo for an hour and you will have plenty of memories by the time you’re done eye-surfing the summatime candy.

But hold on. Just hold up a bit. We don’t want to be creepers now do we? When you took the career job or said I DO, life took a turn for the better. Life was no longer a never-ending scene from Baywatch, and you are no longer David Hasselhoff and his abundantly woodsy chest.

Promiscuity is a bad bad word now, it will cause you to pull a groin or pat on tiger balm morning, mid-day, and night. It is not meant for us mature ones, but for the spry youngsters with a libido the size of Roseanne.

This my friends is no fun, I know. Yesterday I nearly pulled a hamstring on the stationary elliptical. I was trying to both watch ESPN and fake-run at the same time. Sounds easy enough, but nearing thirty, nothing has become easy. The “honey yes, honey of course, honey I will,” sorts of answers, are all that are easy. My life is a tedium glass house, I say no and the world comes crumbling down.

Summatime…

Remember playing ball nine to five on the blacktop with a few friends? It’s seventy five, a clear ardent blue coats the horizon, and the dead day just slumped on your shoulders with not a thing to do. Each one of your pretended for an eight hour period you were MJ, Scottie Pippen, Penny, Shaq, Larry Johnson, Zo, Grant Hill, or Hakeem.

Those were the days. Now, as a tax-paying citizen you’ve grown to resent the group I listed above. As you collect your unemployment from your poor paying teaching gig, your rose colored glasses including your young affair with believing in the impossible have slapped the basement of your life and crumbled into a million little pieces.

Summatime…

Relax, at some point all of us end up washed up. If an epic duo like Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff could never produce anything more than their one-hit album, then trust me, you and I will be forced to scan, fax, make copies, and staple for a living.

But what Summatime foreshadows are feelings of freedom. Despite our limited free time and fading memories of running the black top with skinned knees and soda pop, we all have a place within us that can go there.

Who would of thunk watching men’s professional tennis could excite me like Pam Anderson’s bobbing twins used to? Now as an unemployed man I have the ability to depressingly relive the glory days and bring back the first loves of season: sports, sports, and more sports.

Yes, sports.

Currently, A-Rod is stepping closer and closer to Barry’s all-time home run mark, Tiger is trying to return to form and assume his rightful place as golf’s all-time greatest, and the best living tennis player is still playing at an extremely high level in Roger Federer. Not to mention on Sunday, Jeff Gordon won his 84th NASCAR race, ranking fourth all-time on the list and assuming at forty one, he may go down alongside Richard Petty as the greatest driver in World history.

All this and it’s Summatime. Some things to keep an eye this Summer as you either bum it or find the time in your hectic life to Tivo something. Keep an eye on the Boston Red Sox, who after starting the season 1-9, currrently own the second best record in Baseball and are on pace to be just the ninth team in league history to eclipse 1,000 runs scored in a season.

Watch A-Rod continue his climb to home run greatness, as he sits just thirty four shy of the great Willie Mays mark of 660 at fourth all-time.

The NBA draft on June 23rd is always an intriguing experience. For NBA fans, this not only can shape your future (think Boston in 07′ with the trades of both KG and Ray Ray), but offers a glimpse in the leagues future. This year the popular names are the tweeners, Jimmer Fredette of BYU and Kemba Walker of Uconn, both highly talented but not sure lottery choices as of now.

Normally the draft would be all fun and games. That is if there was not a looming NBA lockout. According to NBA analyst Charles Barkley, the owners are at a “point where they are going to try and break these players unions down.”

Like the NBA’s situation, the NFL lockout has to be the most intriguing situation for sports fans. Most of us wait the two dead  Summer months: June and July, for August when football training camps report and news regarding trades begin to swirl. As of now, both sides remain at a stall and the idea of living without football for many not only kills their Summer, but does away with Sunday beer drinking hoots around the tube. Now Church is the only sad option.

June gloom is definitely upon us. A marshmallow cloud bank over the Pacific does it justice. Not only are we concerned about our lack of freedoms living as grown adults but we also may have to live without two of our favorites next year. In order to keep the faith, now would be a good time watch Baywatch re-runs or finally take up those dance lessons.