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NEW ORLEANS -- The timing of the NFL lockout, a court case that could lift it and the draft will probably claim at least one NFC North minicamp.

Vikings coach Leslie Frazier had planned a three-day veteran minicamp for the weekend of April 8, one of two mandatory minicamps he would otherwise be allowed to schedule as a new head coach. But it appears the earliest a lockout could end is after an April 6 hearing before federal judge Susan Richard Nelson in Minneapolis.

Part of the reason for having such an early camp is to get an initial assessment of the team before setting final draft priorities. But Frazier said Sunday that the conditioning of players would be a factor in deciding the timing of the camp, and it's fair to assume that at least some players wouldn't be ready for a minicamp two days after the end of the lockout.

"There are a lot of factors you have to consider now," Frazier said.

If Nelson lifts the lockout, it seems more likely that Frazier will schedule his camps for sometime after the draft.

NEW ORLEANS -- Greetings from the scene of the 2011 NFL owners meeting, where team officials are beginning to arrive and the lockout is already at the tip of many tongues.

Many of you are wondering what urgency either the NFL or its players might have to resolve their differences in March, especially when the industry's primary revenue producers -- regular-season games -- won't begin for another six months.

After all, most players' compensation doesn't kick in until games begin. (Their health insurance is suspended, however.) And obviously, the teams themselves generate most of their income from television money and ticket sales tied to games.

So when I had an opportunity Sunday, I asked Green Bay Packers president/CEO Mark Murphy if there are any areas where teams are already feeling the impact of the lockout. According to Murphy, some corporate sponsors are expressing concern about renewing their deals with the uncertainty of the 2011 regular season.

"For a lot of sponsorships, there is a lead time," Murphy said. "They're worried [whether] this will be resolved in time for [them] to be able to start programs in time for the season."

Murphy also suggested that some teams are having trouble getting commitments for premium seating in their stadiums, although the Packers are not likely to be one of those.

Typically, you rarely hear NFL executives provide any level of specifics about their revenues, sales and losses. I'll be interested to see how much of that information trickles out this week with much of the national media that covers the NFL assembled in once place.

Hooray for the New York Giants, who became the first NFL team to my knowledge to publicly acknowledge the impropriety of demanding payment for season tickets during a lockout. According to multiple reports, the Giants have altered their payment calendar so that no money would change hands until NFL owners and players agree on a new collective bargaining agreement.

Full payment for tickets was due on May 1, but according to ESPNNewYork.com's Ohm Youngmisuk, the Giants are giving ticket holders the option of deferring payment until a new CBA is reached. That solves my central gripe on this issue: teams asking their fans to provide working capital during a lockout that, unless it is lifted, will result in the failure to deliver the product.

All NFL teams would eventually refund ticket payments for canceled games, but only after having it at their disposal for six months or more.

I don't have the exact deadlines for each NFC North team, but I do know the Chicago Bears have asked for full payment by April 7 and the Minnesota Vikings by May 23. Here's hoping that some, if not all, of our teams heed the Giants' example and treat their best customers with a little more financial dignity.

I'm working on a few football-related posts Wednesday morning, but I couldn't help but bring to your attention Sally Jenkins' latest column in The Washington Post.

Among other things, Jenkins hammers NFL owners for initiating a lockout that could potentially "padlock stadiums that taxpayers helped pay for." And echoing what I've been ranting for some time about, Jenkins suggests owners should push back season-ticket payments until after a new collective bargaining agreement is reached.

Here's what Brian Frederick, the executive director of the Sports Fans Coalition, told Jenkins:

"The NFL needs to immediately stop soliciting season ticket payments, asking people to pay on the chance there will be a season. They get access to tremendous capital and the interest on it, and state attorneys and local governments should immediately start looking into the issue in terms of the amount of money they've invested in these stadiums, and making sure their investment is protected."

As we noted Monday, some NFC North teams are offering nominal interest on refunds for any canceled games. In the end, much of Jenkins' outrage will be moot (there you go, Andy of Fort Collins) if the full 2011 season is played. In the overall scheme of things, there are no right and wrong sides in this dispute. It takes two to tango.

But on a micro level, some bi-products of the lockout seem patently inappropriate. Asking your best customers for full financial support at a time when you've shut down your business -- remember, a lockout in essence means no games until further notice -- falls into that category.

As we noted earlier Tuesday, Minnesota Vikings tailback Adrian Peterson is part of a new online reality show and is doing some promotional work for it. ESPN.com's interview can be found over on Page 2. But I think Doug Farrar’s interview over at Yahoo! Sports will resonate for some time.

In the interview, conducted moments after the NFL Players Association decertified last Friday and posted Tuesday, Peterson called the NFL’s arrangement with his players "modern-day slavery" and a "rip-off." He added that players "are getting robbed" and all but provided a caricature of a modern-day athlete with no touch on reality.

*Update: The words "modern-day slavery" no longer appear in the Yahoo! Sports post, but the author has confirmed via Twitter that Peterson used it during the interview. For an explanation of why it was removed, check Farrar's Twitter feed.)

*Update II: Late Tuesday afternoon, Farrar restored the full quote.

Here are the key quotes, as they appeared in original post:

On his message to people who are tired of labor talk:

Adrian Peterson: We're business-minded, also. It's not just fun and games. A lot of football players, whether it's Sunday or Monday night -- we're out there on the field, competing, hitting each other. But people don't see everything else behind it. It's a job for us, too -- every day of the week. We're in different states, sometimes thousands of miles away from our families and kids, and a lot of people don't look at it like that. All some people see is, 'Oh, we're not going to be around football.' But how the players look at it … the players are getting robbed. They are. The owners are making so much money off of us to begin with. I don't know that I want to quote myself on that…

On other players feeling the same way:

AP: It's modern-day slavery, you know? People kind of laugh at that, but there are people working at regular jobs who get treated the same way, too. With all the money … the owners are trying to get a different percentage, and bring in more money. I understand that; these are business-minded people. Of course this is what they are going to want to do. I understand that; it's how they got to where they are now. But as players, we have to stand our ground and say, 'Hey -- without us, there's no football.' There are so many different perspectives from different players, and obviously we're not all on the same page -- I don't know. I don't really see this going to where we'll be without football for a long time; there's too much money lost for the owners. Eventually, I feel that we'll get something done.

But this crazy idea about an 18-game season … I'm sure they want more entertainment and more revenue, but we're not going to see a pinch of that (the increased revenue), and it's just the business we're in.

I’ve gotten to know Peterson a little bit over the past four years, visiting his house once and meeting part of his family for a profile I wrote of him in my newspaper days. Unless something has changed dramatically, I’ve always found him to be a thoughtful, earnest and charitable human being. He has in many ways been the opposite of the caricature he’s now fulfilled. But I'm sorry, I can’t offer him any defense in this instance.

Let’s skip the usual arguments about spoiled athletes and their sense of entitlement, and focus squarely on a term that should never, ever be used to describe anything -- let alone a job that will compensate Peterson $10.72 million in 2011.

There is no such thing as "modern-day slavery" unless the instance includes the complete denial of human rights, unjust incarceration and physical force used to require free work. Anything short of that is a bad deal, not "modern-day slavery." Owners might profit off players, perhaps disproportionately to what the players themselves receive, but everyone is making money and no one is there against their will.

I’m guessing Peterson intended to use the analogy to describe what he might consider an unequal distribution of the NFL’s $9 billion in revenues. Still, I hope he realizes how inappropriate it is to put the situation of NFL players anywhere in the stratosphere of slavery.

The conflict between NFL owners and players won’t be settled by public opinion. But Peterson certainly didn’t do himself or his union colleagues any favors with this series of comments. What he said was so offensive, even for someone who has no track record of controversial comments, that I think it will paint both sides of this lockout with the brush of greed and inhumanity. Let me know when this whole labor thing is over. Please.

As regular readers know by now, one of my lockout soap box issues has been the requests for season ticket payments at a time when the NFL can't guarantee a full 2011 season. The league announced last year that full refunds for any canceled games will be provided within 30 days from when the league determines how many games will be played.

I've referred to that approach as an interest-free loan to cash-strapped owners during a lockout. A true gesture would be delaying payment until after a collective bargaining agreement is reached, but it appears some teams have recognized the extent of their request.

Over the weekend, three NFC North teams informed season-ticket holders of plans to offer some level of simple interest as a part of any refund. The amount literally could end up being pennies, but I guess you could consider it a modest gesture of acknowledgement for holding the cash of your best customers for six months or more.

Thanks to a few loyal readers and some other assistant NFC North bloggers, I've gotten a look at the communications from all four teams. The Chicago Bears were the only team that did not mention interest, and my understanding is they have no plans to offer it. (Based on the loose change likely to be involved, I wouldn't make too harsh of a judgment against the Bears for it.)

The Detroit Lions' letter, written by president Tom Lewand, includes this passage: "In the event any games are canceled, be assured we will provide you with a full refund, with simple interest, for any cancelled preseason or regular-season home games. We will provide you with the details of the refund program at the appropriate time should it become necessary."

The Green Bay Packers' letter had similar phrasing, indicating more details would arrive this summer if there is still no CBA. In the end, the Packers and Lions could follow a plan set forth by the Minnesota Vikings, who committed to paying at an annual 1 percent rate starting from the date of the canceled game and continuing until the refund is processed. To qualify for interest, season tickets must be paid in full by May 23.

As we've discussed, many of you are mulling competing factors in deciding whether to renew season tickets. Some of you don't want to support a lockout. Others don't want your money being used as a financial cushion, even if temporarily, while a work stoppage continues. And many of you, especially in Green Bay and Chicago, know that passing on tickets now will put you at the back of a long line when football eventually returns.

So in that sense, teams that pay interest aren't asking to hold your money completely for free. And a 1 percent annual rate is competitive with, say, the interest rates you would get if you put that money in the bank or even a money market account.

But practically speaking, it's much more of a gesture than a windfall. I'm no financial genius, and so we'll talk in nice round numbers here. If the cost of a ticket is $100, and the refund isn't processed for a year after the game was originally scheduled, you'll make $1 interest on the first game and less than $10 for the entire season.

Again, I don't know what interest rate the Lions and Packers would use. I don't know if any games are going to get canceled or how long the 2011 season would take to resolve if they are. But gesture or not, the basic fact remains: Those who renew season tickets are providing a (nearly) interest-free loan for a business in lockdown.

As we enter the first full week of Lockout'11, I'll try not to bury you with legal minutiae and random speculation. All of this is unprecedented, and none of us knows how it will play out.

With that said, I will pass along specific information that will have a direct impact on our NFC North community. One such story comes from Mark Maske of the Washington Post, who has a pretty good handle on how the offseason would proceed if the NFL Players Association wins an injunction against the league, effectively ending the lockout.

If that happens, the owners would impose their own structure for free agency to begin next month. According to Maske, those rules almost certainly would mirror those used during last year's uncapped offseason. Most notably for us, that would mean players would need six accrued seasons to qualify for unrestricted free agency.

We've assumed that the league would return to its previous four-year requirement when free agency began, ostensibly after a new collective bargaining agreement (CBA). But if free agency starts without a new CBA, which would happen if the NFLPA's injunction is successful, players with four and five accrued years would be restricted free agents.

Based on the tenders offered this month, teams would at least have the option of matching any offer those players receive on the market. Some prominent NFC North players would fall into that category. Below is a partial list of the players who would be unrestricted with a new CBA, but restricted under the likely terms following an injunction:

Chicago Bears

• Cornerback Corey Graham
• Safety Danieal Manning
• Linebacker Nick Roach

Detroit Lions*

• Cornerback Chris Houston
• Quarterback Drew Stanton

Green Bay Packers

• Guard Daryn Colledge
• Place-kicker Mason Crosby
• Receiver James Jones
• Running back John Kuhn

Minnesota Vikings

• Defensive end Ray Edwards
• Receiver Sidney Rice

Again, none of us knows exactly how this will play out. But if you're keeping a cursory eye on the initial legal proceedings, which could continue for a month, know this much: An injunction likely will take us back to the 2010 uncapped rules for free agency.

*Update: As several of you pointed out, Lions defensive end Cliff Avril has three accrued seasons and thus will be a restricted free agent no matter what system is implemented.

On the first full day of Lockout'11, three of our NFC North teams reached out to media members in one form or another to provide some local context and/or relevant information. (I don't blame the Minnesota Vikings for their silence. The lockout might have squashed any hope they have to receive financing for a new stadium in 2011.)

Here are the highlights:

Chicago Bears: In a statement, president/CEO Ted Phillips predicted that "a deal will get done" with players and "we expect to play football in 2011." He said plans remain in place for the Bears' "Ultimate Weekend," including the draft party and Bears Expo at Soldier Field, and added: "As an individual club, our team focus is on our preparation for the 2011 season and we want Bears fans to know we are going to continue to do everything we can within the League rules to prepare for a championship season. Our immediate focus is on preparing for the draft. We also continue to evaluate our team and will be ready to take advantage of all avenues to improve our team once a new collective bargaining agreement is reached."

Detroit Lions: Team president Tom Lewand addressed the lockout-related problem faced by players rehabilitating injuries or surgery. Those players, including quarterback Matthew Stafford, can't have direct contact with team officials, nor can they use team facilities, during a lockout.

"We have mechanisms in place where we can monitor the rehabilitation of any injured players who were injured playing football last year," Lewand said, according to a transcript of his remarks. "The guys that we know we have set up at rehabilitation facilities around the country. We have lines of communication open to those rehabilitation facilities and we'll be able to monitor the progress of those injured players as they progress."

The Lions plan to keep their season-ticket holders informed via e-mail blasts and letters sent through the U.S. mail, Lewand said.

Green Bay Packers: In a conference call with local reporters, Packers executives Mark Murphy and Jason Weid said the team hopes to avoid layoffs during the lockout, but that employee salaries and new hiring have been frozen, according to Don Walker of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Top executives could face "relatively sizable" pay reductions, Weid said. That list includes Murphy, general manager Ted Thompson and coach Mike McCarthy.

Plans remain in place for a $13-$14 million in upgrades to Lambeau Field.

By now, you've probably heard that the NFL Players Association has de-certified -- in a Minneapolis federal court, by the way -- and will now operate as a trade association. The move has sparked immediate concern and panic about the state of the 2011 season.

You're going to read and hear plenty of doomsday scenarios and rhetoric over the next hours, days and weeks. None of us knows how this is going to play out. It's never happened before. But that's why I appreciate the always-thoughtful words of Chicago Bears safety Chris Harris, who just tweeted:

"I would like to say this is not a time to hit the panic button as fans. Football season doesn't start till Sept remember that."

Indeed. How about if we all take a breath and remember that deal-making can often be uncomfortable. Unless you're a huge fan of strength and conditioning programs and organized team activities, you're not going to be missing much in the next few months. We're a long way -- six months, in fact -- from actual games being affected. Hold on tight.

Jeff of Denver asked a simple question that I'm surprised hasn't generated more public discussion: "Who pays for the federal mediator, the players or the owners?"

The answer, as best I can tell: You do.

As you know by now, the NFL and NFL Players Association have been negotiating for weeks with help from George Cohen of the Federal Mediation & Conciliation Service. The FMCS is a government agency with an annual budget of less than $50 million. According to its website, there is no charge "for the most part" for FMCS services:

The Federal government provides most FMCS mediation services in support of collective bargaining free of charge to the parties. FMCS also offers other government-subsidized services for community and organizational conflict resolution. There are modest charges for some services such as arbitration referral.

I reached out to John Arnold, the director of public affairs for FMCS, to clarify whether any of the services being provided to the NFL or its players are fee-based. Via e-mail, here is how Arnold responded: "We are a U.S. government labor relations agency, and our core mission is to provide mediation services to labor and management during collective bargaining to mitigate or avert economically disruptive work stoppages. Mediation is provided with the voluntary consent of both labor and management. The Agency does not charge for mediation in the context of a collective bargaining negotiation."

A reasonable person might not be thrilled to know that taxpayers are footing the bill for mediation while NFL owners and players haggle over how to split revenues in a $9 billion industry, but I'm not going to get worked up about it. There is economic incentive for everyone to avoid an NFL work stoppage, even to taxpayers and the government itself.

Over the past two years, in fact, the FCMS estimates it has saved the U.S. economy $5.1 billion in wages and profits that otherwise would have been lost due to work stoppages. If Cohen can push the sides to an agreement in this case, the expense of tapping into a government program will have been justified.

It's probably worth your time to listen to this podcast of Detroit Lions defensive end Kyle Vanden Bosch, who spoke this week with the Tennessee Titans' radio network. I think it will help you understand some of the intangibles the Lions picked up when they signed him as a free agent last season, as well as illuminating the key team role he could play this offseason.

Vanden Bosch said he has organized group workouts for Lions players in the Detroit area if a lockout takes place. (During a lockout, all conditioning and any other player contact would be banned at team facilities.) They could range from lifting sessions to 7-on-7 drills, he said, and presumably would include drafted rookies if a lockout extends that long.

"We've taken some big steps," Vanden Bosch said. "We ended last season on a high note. We need to continue to take those steps. Regardless of the labor situation, my responsibility, as a captain and a leader of this team, is to make sure we're moving forward."

Players from many NFL teams have made similar plans, but given the Lions' meandering leadership in recent years, I wonder if anyone else would have taken charge this offseason the way Vanden Bosch has. There is no doubt he was a big part of the Lions' elevated defensive line play before injuring his neck last season, but I remain convinced that Vanden Bosch's top contribution was adding a new level of intensity and leadership to the defense and locker room.

"Anybody that's been around Kyle Vanden Bosch understands why I was at his doorstep last year," Lions coach Jim Schwartz said last month at the scouting combine.

If there is a lockout, Vanden Bosch will be busy organizing Lions team events. But he said he could also make time for a wrestling match against New York Jets linebacker Bart Scott, who recently made a TNA wrestling appearance. In 2008, you might remember, Vanden Bosch organized "KVB Birthday Brawl" with NFL players and TNA wrestlers in Nashville. The event raised $90,000 for charity.

"There's no question I'd win," Vanden Bosch said. "Bart Scott, I guarantee you he can get on the microphone and he can definitely out-talk me. But if it came down to just pure wrestling, I'd whoop him."

Well, well. Our pet NFL labor topic, the issue of financial transparency between owners and players, has taken center stage Wednesday. According to ESPN's Chris Mortensen, the NFL Players Association is asking for additional financial information before agreeing to further revenue givebacks. Owners remain unwilling to grant the request, which would include individual statements from all 32 teams.

You know where I stand on this: An objective third party should be given access to the information and, in turn, create a report based on a mutually agreed upon set of parameters and security formalities.

The union has access to the league's financial bottom line, but they don't have a team-by-team breakdown that would tell them if a revenue downturn is league-wide or skewed by a minority of poorly performing teams. Regardless, the issue generated what I thought was a really thoughtful note from Steve of Wauwatosa, Wis., who connected the dots between a number of related topics to help explain owners' reluctance:

The more I think about the lack of detailed financial information, the more significant it becomes. The owners expect the players to take less on their word that money is tight. But the fact we don't already have more information is because so many states and communities have done just that. They put up countless millions to build stadiums with no public disclosure as to the teams' ability to pay a fair share. IF there had been such disclosure, we'd have it in the record already. But we don't.

How did anyone calculate the teams' "fair share" if no one ever saw their books? Maybe one reason the teams expect the players to take their word for it is because that tactic has already worked so many times before.

Excellent point, Steve, and one that has significant relevance to the Minnesota Vikings' current stadium drive. The NFL has done a masterful job of creating the impression that the "norm" or "going rate" for building stadiums is to ask taxpayers for about 70 percent of the financing. The remaining 30 percent is purported to be what teams can afford while still reaping the windfall that would allow them to compete financially with their league-wide competitors.

A detailed look at each team's finances might provide a different picture. Have local governments kept their teams in business by building them stadiums? Or have they been leveraged into a market that generates obscene profits for individual owners?

We don't know the answer to those questions. The financial reports of individual teams would help us answer them. That information is so valuable that I wonder if we won't ultimately end up where Michael Silver suggested over at Yahoo! Sports: Owners reducing their demands for a giveback in exchange for keeping the individual reports private. Given the stadiums the NFL still hopes to build around the country, that reduction might be the best money they ever committed.

The NFL and its Players Association are jockeying around a number of key issues as they try to negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. One of the most basic, as we discussed last month, is the degree to which the players trust owners' claims that their bottom line is shrinking.

Our very own Green Bay Packers are the only NFL team with open financial records, and they show that profits dropped from $20.1 million to $9.8 million during the two most recent fiscal years that have been calculated. A central question of the debate is whether the Packers' finances are typical of other teams, whether they are on the high end or if they are on the low end.

To that end, we pushed an idea others have suggested as well: Hiring a third party to provide an independent analysis of each team's financial books and provide a report -- with sensitive information redacted -- as soon as possible. Recently, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia called for the same thing.

Now, reports suggest this issue is on the forefront of this week's extended mediation. Writes Mark Maske of the Washington Post: "Another major stumbling block this week, the sources said, is that the union continues to seek more information from the league about the teams' finances, while the NFL's negotiators remain reluctant to provide the players with the extensive financial data they seek."

Meanwhile, Peter King of Sports Illustrated expects some movement soon on this issue: "I would be surprised if this week goes by without the owners showing the players their books -- or at least more financial information than is required by the CBA."

What would this mean to NFC North blog readers? If some of the resulting information reaches the public sphere, we would get a better idea of the extent to which the Minnesota Vikings are struggling with limited revenues at the Metrodome. We would also understand better how the debt the Detroit Lions took on to build Ford Field is impacting their business. And most importantly, we would have a better idea of how the Packers -- who play in the NFL's smallest market -- compare with the rest of the league. Stay tuned.

The NFL will continue to move us through unprecedented territory over the next week as its owners and players work toward a new collective bargaining agreement. It's left me, you and many others confused about what can and can't happen.

Let's pull from ESPN.com's news story to reiterate the ground rules for the next week:

"The extension of the CBA also includes a 'tolling agreement'; in this scenario, the league's 32 teams still will be prohibited from executing player transactions. It is the same agreement reached Thursday. During this period, teams can talk about players but signings or renegotiations of current contracts cannot occur."

So if you've been reading about player moves Friday, they would have to actually occurred Thursday in order to be official. That's apparently the case for two reported deals in the NFC North:

1. Adam Caplan of Fox Sports reports the Green Bay Packers have reached a two-year agreement with safety Charlie Peprah, who would have become an unrestricted free agent. Peprah started 11 games last season after rookie Morgan Burnett suffered a season-ending knee injury. I would imagine the Peprah/Burnett combination in 2011 would make safety Atari Bigby expendable.
2. The Detroit Lions have re-signed cornerback Nate Vasher, according to Dave Birkett of the Detroit Free Press. It's interesting that the Lions agreed with Vasher, who was a big part of the Lions Week 16 victory over the Miami Dolphins, and not fellow starter Chris Houston. Given how wild the past few weeks have been, I'm not sure how much to read into that yet.

We live for another week.

ESPN's Adam Schefter is among those reporting a seven-day extension of the NFL's current collective bargaining agreement (CBA), delaying a long-anticipated lockout by at least another week. Owners and players have until next Friday -- March 11 -- to agree on the terms of a new CBA.

In practical terms, this extension means a quiet week for NFL teams, who will be prohibited from making roster moves of any sort. Conditioning programs will remain on hold, as would any organized team activities (OTAs) that might be planned. The sole focus of the league next week will be to hammer out a new deal.

Will it happen? I'll leave that up to ESPN sources with more intimate knowledge of the situation. I'll post their assessments as warranted.