NFL: No date set for cancelling games

Associated Press

NEW YORK

The NFL hasn’t set a deadline for when games would be canceled without a collective bargaining agreement.

“We don’t have a date by which the season is lost, or a date by which we have to move from 16 games to some other [number],” Eric Grubman, the league’s executive vice president for business operations, said Friday. “Our intentions are to play a full season, and we will pull every lever that we can within the flexibility we have or can identify to make that happen.”

Even during the lockout, Grubman said, the NFL and teams are working so they will be ready to start the season quickly once a deal is reached.

“We have to be able to figure out: When you turn the key, is the gas going to flow?” he said. “Is everything going to work?”

The 2011 schedule released Tuesday has games beginning Sept. 8, but includes some room to maneuver. The NFL could still squeeze in 16 games with a delayed start by eliminating bye weeks and the week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl. The league also has a deal with host Indianapolis to potentially hold the Super Bowl a week later, stemming from the earlier possibility of playing an 18-game regular season.

But a delayed opening would remove a meaningful date from the schedule. For now, the first Sunday of the season falls on the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and part of the NFL’s business-as-usual planning includes deciding how to commemorate that moment.

“Its national significance is profound,” Grubman said. “And the significance of competitive sports in America is also very profound.”

Predicting a deadline for when the schedule would have to be revised is difficult because it’s impossible to know how negotiations will play out. If at some point it becomes clear a deal is near, the NFL can begin setting plans for the upcoming season. If an agreement is reached unexpectedly and rapidly, there might be more lag time before the games start.

Executive vice president for football operations Ray Anderson said it was feasible to play fewer than the normal four preseason games, but general managers and coaches would prefer at least two.

In other news, NFL officials said commissioner Roger Goodell’s chat with Chad Ochocinco was OK under guidelines restricting communication between the league and players because the conversation was social. Goodell said he had chatted with other players during the lockout and would continue to do so. But officials acknowledged the guidelines of what’s acceptable behavior by teams included some gray area. “The easy thing to do is say, ‘You can’t call,”’ Grubman said.