NFL Lockout Reinstated

The lockout that was on for 45 days and then lifted is  now back on.

The National Football League, after a series of legal setbacks, got a breath of fresh air on Friday when a federal appeals court put the lift of the lockout on hold.

Last Monday, U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson ordered the end of the lockout, calling it illegal, and she denied the NFL’s appeal for reinstatement on Wednesday night.

But the U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed with Judge Nelson. The appellate court granted the NFL’s request for a temporary stay of the injunction which had at least temporarily ended the 45-day lockout.

Nelson’s stay had led to a crazy couple of days where teams and players had no rules to guide them. On Friday, the NFL even opened up team facilities to players for the first time in nearly two months.

The appellate court’s ruling left NFL teams in a situation where they didn’t even know if they would lock their doors again — until late Friday when the league announced the lockout was back on and effective immediately.

The former Nevada quarterback, Colin Kaepernick was selected by the San Francisco 49ers with the fourth pick of the second round of the NFL draft on Friday, the same day that a federal appeals court granted the league’s request for a temporary stay of a judge’s order to lift the lockout.

For Kaepernick — and former Pack teammate Dontay Moch, taken by the Bengals with the 66th pick — that means there is basically nothing they can do. The 49ers can’t offer Kaepernick a contract. They can’t even give him a playbook.

Kaepernick, who was en route to San Francisco on Friday night to have dinner with 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh, will in the near future be a millionaire. But today, like every other NFL player, he is unemployed.

“It’s certainly a fluid situation,” Kaepernick’s agent, Scott Smith, wrote in an email. “But with the lockout being reinstated today I believe the 49ers can have a ‘meet and greet’ with Colin and do some media (interviews) with him. But I don’t believe they can do much beyond that until the lockout is lifted.”

Sources: Reno-Gazette Journal; Los Angeles Times; ESPN.com