NFL has no set deadlines on when games might have to be canceled

NEW YORK — The NFL hasn’t set a deadline for when games would be canceled without a collective bargaining agreement.

“We don’t have a date by which the season is lost, or a date by which we have to move from 16 games to some other (number),” Eric Grubman, the league’s executive vice president for business operations, said Friday at a meeting with Associated Press Sports Editors. “Our intentions are to play a full season.”

The 2011 schedule has games beginning Sept. 8 but includes room to maneuver. The NFL could still squeeze in 16 games with a delayed start by eliminating bye weeks and the week between the conference championships and the Super Bowl. The league also has a deal with host Indianapolis to potentially hold the Super Bowl a week later, stemming from the earlier possibility of playing an 18-game regular season.

But a delayed opening would remove a meaningful date from the schedule. For now, the first Sunday of the season falls on the 10-year anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks, and part of the NFL’s business-as-usual planning includes deciding how to commemorate that moment.

“Its national significance is profound,” Grubman said.

Executive vice president for football operations Ray Anderson said it was feasible to play fewer than the normal four preseason games, but general managers and coaches would prefer at least two.

The two sides took a break from mediation earlier this week after four sessions and aren’t scheduled to reconvene until May 16. Before then, U.S. District Judge Susan Richard Nelson of Minneapolis is expected to decide on the players’ request to immediately lift the lockout.

Commissioner Roger Goodell said he didn’t believe the labor impasse would be resolved through the courts.

“At the end of the day it’s going to come down to the negotiations,” he said.