Buried in the footnotes of the League Office financial statements was this:

Certain Member Clubs of the NFL participate in a League-wide Credit Facility (the "Facility") under which participating Member Clubs borrow funds from certain financial institutions and/or their intermediaries.

The note goes on to say transactions are not disclosed in these statements (presumably in the League Operations statements). That facility is, of course, available to clubs who need operating funds while the NFL is in lockout. The amount of the facility is not disclosed here but the much smaller NBA has a credit facility of $1B reportedly available to its members so the NFL facility may be double that. The point is that the NFL is not going to run out of money even without the notorious $4B from its broadcast partners.

Given the 8th Circuit Court ruling just rendered and the vastly superior financial strength of the league over the union the net effect is leverage for the NFL. As negotiations have come close to being concluded it is reasonable to conclude that the union has already figured this out and are accepting many of the owners' demands. This appears to be a wise move and the NBPA would be wise to follow suit.

Of course it's no suprise. Remember what lead to this lockout in the first place? The league was already receiving a billion dollar expense credit and was demanding another billion dollars be added to it. The Union invited the owners to go have animal sex with themselves. Everything else, including the 18-game smokescreen, was window dressing. The league gave up the existing credit, and that additional one was never going to happen, but the players' share of revenue is going from over 50% to somewhere around 47%. That's about $450 million or so a year.