"The NFL Spring Meeting is being held in the next season's Super Bowl city, as usual. The circumstances are anything but.

With the clock ticking toward July's training camps and September's regular season, NFL general counsel Jeff Pash on Monday echoed the words of New York Jets linebacker Bart Scott, who last week cited the fans' growing ire toward the lockout.

"I really thought he put it very well, that we're getting to the point where we're really putting our fans at risk," Pash said. "We're getting to the point where people just can't understand why there's not a deal being made. And I think in many respects the best thing for all of us to do is get out of court, get out of the media and get together, and I think Bart Scott is right.

"We're getting to the point where we're putting our business at risk, and it's our shared livelihood. We have a shared responsibility to get this done. We can't do it ourselves. They can't do it themselves. And so we really need to put the litigation aside, we need to focus on negotiations. I think there's a deal to be made, I really do. I've thought that for a long time."

While the league will address NFL Competition Committee proposals outstanding from March's annual meeting, deal with Super Bowl XLVI planning and attend to other business matters, one issue -- the labor situation -- lords over all others."