NFL Lockout News: Owners Have 'Secret' Meeting In Chicago

As the NFL lockout saga continues, the latest turn of events has a small group of NFL owners meeting in Chicago. According to Brad Biggs of the Chicago Tribune, Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, Panthers, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell and perhaps Panthers owner Jerry Richardson were those in attendance Tuesday before leaving on Wednesday.

With court hearings coming up on Friday, what was the topic of this meeting? To start, just to clarify, obviously this "secret" meeting was not so secret if we have reports of it. That just makes it unannounced.

NFL Network reporter Albert Breer clears things up. He believes that it has little to do with the court hearing, saying that "hay's in the barn." I don't know what that means exactly, but I imagine it has to do with the fact that briefs have already been filed and that any work for the hearing would already take place. Oh, also another important fact is that, as there were owners and the commissioner at the meeting, they will not be at the court hearing.

Among the tweets that Breer shares, he indicates that the meeting is more than likely about mediation. "If you wanna connect the dots, (the) NFL (and) players were sent home from Judge Boylan's mediation the last time expected to bring work back," he tweets. "They return there Tuesday."

So, as it turns out, this tidbit of information turns out to be a lot like the lockout -- a lot of hype and hope, but little of substance.