NFL players given OK to report

Associated Press

MINNEAPOLIS

Finally, the NFL is getting back to football.

Five days after a federal judge declared the lockout was illegal and nearly seven weeks after it began, the NFL said players can talk with coaches, work out at team headquarters and look at their playbooks.

The NFL said all of that can begin today, when it also is expected to release detailed guidelines for free agency, trades and other roster moves in the absence of a collective-bargaining agreement.

“That’s great news,” said linebacker Joe Mays, one of 10 Denver Broncos players who showed up at the team’s headquarters Thursday. “It’s something we’ve been trying to do, get back to work.”

The promise of football was a welcome step forward on a day members of the Tennessee Titans showed up to find two armed security guards at their locked-up facility and no sign of their new coach. New players in particular will benefit from the new guidelines.

“These rookies, there’s a lot going on for them,” New York Giants center Shaun O’Hara said. “So any info they can get, any things they can study, is good. If the lockout happens again, they’ll have plenty to study from their teams.”

That’s certainly what the NFL wants.

The league has asked the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis to restore the lockout as soon as possible.