With growing indications that the owners will exercise in November 2008 their prerogative to pull the plug two years early on the labor deal, and in light of the administrative headaches that will arise in the ensuing last capped year under the deal of 2009, we think it would be wise for Commissioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA executive director Gene Upshaw to begin talking sooner rather than later about extending the deal.

If talks don’t begin until November, it will be too late to avoid the last capped year.  And if the owners bite the bullet that is the last capped year, they might be more inclined to take an uncapped year — especially since an uncapped year won’t be the financial free for all that most people think it will be.  For example, guys who already have contracts for 2010 won’t be entitled to join in the bonanza, and only players with six seasons of service will be able to hit the unrestricted market.  Also, specific restrictions will apply to the ability of the final eight teams from the prior season to sign free agents.

And with Upshaw already talking tough about the refusal of the union to reduce its share of Total Football Revenue, the volume will only increase as various owners chime in with their views on whether the numbers need to change.  In turn, that will make it harder for something to get done before the point of no return is crossed.

Of course, it might already be too late to work out a deal.  As Upshaw recently pointed out, this isn’t hockey.  The owners aren’t losing money.  They’re making it.  A lot of it.

So the true source of the consternation here could be the ever-vague notion of supplemental revenue sharing.  The last CBA hinged on the owners coming up with an acceptable plan for addressing the ever-growing disparity among teams like the Pats and ‘Skins and teams like the Cards and Jags.  It could be that the teams who are making the money resent the idea of giving it up to teams who aren’t, and that the teams who aren’t making it believe they aren’t getting enough.

Regardless, the league and the union are on a collision course.  And unless they start trying to work this situation out right now, there might not be enough time to do it later.