The NFL's owners and the NFL Players Association have just over four months to work out a new Collective Bargaining Agreement or the league will reach the 2010 calendar without a salary cap for the first time since 1993.

The ramifications are large for both players and owners, and though the two sides — and commissioner Roger Goodell — continue to say that working out a new deal is critical, there have been few substantive developments in the negotiations.

Pro Football Weekly reached out to NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith for an exclusive Q&A to discuss the labor issues that stare the league in the face. Smith has been on the job for less than a year, and he has been hard at work trying to meet with players around the league (he has visited 30 of the 32 clubs) and educate them on the latest goings-on with the owners and what a cap-less season — and, if it gets that far, a potential owners lockout in 2011 — might mean for their future.

Here's what Smith had to say in a recent conversation.

PFW: The union and the owners' negotiating team just met for another round of CBA discussions on Oct. 20, the fourth time you have met in this process. How would you say this most recent session went?

Smith: It has been my position not to comment on the specific talks of the sessions.

PFW: The vibe from the owners' meetings in Boston was a hopeful one from commissioner Goodell and some of the owners who spoke on the matter. Do you share their optimism?

Smith: I am hopeful we can get this done, yes. We are committed. There's nothing I want more for the players. I do believe we are on a tight deadline here (to get a new CBA by March), though.

PFW: One of the interesting discrepancies lately has been the issue of economic transparency. The owners opted out of the deal, and the union has said it wants the teams to open up their books to justify the move. Goodell last week told us that no one from the union explicitly has asked for the league to open its books. Do you say differently?

Smith: I chose not to respond (when he heard Goodell's comments). What I would rather do is not even address that specifically. But the owners opted out of the agreement in '08. And it seems to me that if they believe there is an economic problem, or an economic imbalance, in the current deal, they know how much players make. It would be important, in order to analyze whether there is an imbalance, to know what every team makes per year. That's why the profit and/or loss of the teams is critical information in evaluating whether or not this is a fair deal between the owners and the players.

PFW: The one team that is publicly traded, the Green Bay Packers, reported significant gains last season. What can be gleaned from that information?

Smith: Looking at the Packers' audited financial statements, it showed that they made $20 million in profit last year with a slight decrease on investment revenue, which is understandable. And while you can't extrapolate that, that is one of the smaller-market teams that still showed a tremendous profit in a recession. Brett Favre was gone, and they didn't even make the playoffs. One question I would have is, does the NFL believe that the Green Bay Packers' organization is hurt or suffers any harm by having to turn over their financial statements? My guess is that the NFL doesn't believe that they are economically harmed or competitively harmed in any way. If you want to ask (Packers president and CEO) Mark Murphy … does he believe that he is hurt by having to turn over the Packers' audited financial statements every year?

PFW: You have been going around to different teams, explaining the benefit of players saving up in case of an owners lockout in 2011. Has it begun to sink in for some of them how close and how real all of this is?

Smith: I am positive that it has sunk in. We have met, obviously, with virtually all of the teams, all except two. But in addition, we had a special conference call with (the players') agents to explain what we believe about the lockout, and the agents agree about (the players') need to save. We've also had calls with the presidents of the players' wives' association (Off The Field), the players' mothers' association (Professional Football Players Mothers Association) and the fathers' association (National Football Players Father's Association). And we also had calls with the financial advisors for many of the players. So it was important for me to get that information not only to the players but also to their wives, to their parents, to their agents and to their financial advisors.

PFW: In April, the Lions signed No. 1 draft pick Matthew Stafford to a contract that is worth $41.7 million guaranteed — more guaranteed money than in the extension recently signed by former Super Bowl MVP Eli Manning. The owners are likely to ask for a rookie wage scale of some kind. Is there a way to have a system like this in place that actually benefits the players as a whole?

Smith: Yes. And sometimes I believe this is missed from mainstream media, talking about the rookie wage scale … no one from the NFL has proposed a veteran retention program. No one has proposed that money they would save with a rookie scale would go to veterans. No one has proposed a policy to increase the amount of money under the (salary) cap that should be dedicated to veterans. So while I have heard a great deal of rhetoric about a rookie wage scale, no one from the National Football League has proposed a framework that would work within a rookie wage scale or create a financial structure that was designed to help teams keep veterans.

PFW: Are you only talking about the owners proposing it to the players? Or has the union proposed such a system to the owners?

Smith: No one has made a formal proposal on the rookie wage scale. Well, I should say this: The NFL hasn't made a formal proposal on a rookie wage scale.

PFW: But has the union proposed anything in this vein?

Smith: Well, they walked away from the agreement. So we thought we had a deal until 2012. I am not in a position to have to propose anything right now.

PFW: The salary cap presents an interesting dilemma if we reach an uncapped season. On the one hand, you might see some tremendous contracts out there; but on the flip side, there would be no set floor for spending. I have to assume you are ambivalent to the idea of a cap-less season.

Smith: It's important for me to get a deal before the uncapped year. I believe that the system that the NFL has had that ensures competitive balance — on-field competitive balance by ensuring that there is off-field competitive balance — is one that has made more great games, great teams and great fans throughout the years. I don't understand why you would willingly choose to push the fans and the players into uncharted territory where that competitive balance between teams can be altered. I think it has been a pretty good deal. When you think about a team like the Arizona Cardinals that literally came one play away from winning the Super Bowl … and that's what every fan lives for: that any given Sunday their team can not only win today but their team could possibly win it all.

PFW: How important to your negotiations are the idea of guaranteed contracts or partially guaranteed contracts? Or is that just barking at the moon considering how much there still is left to discuss?

Smith: We are interested in learning more about why the (owners) opted out of the agreement and what they think is wrong with the agreement and what they propose to fix it. But now that the players are forced to the negotiating table, will it provide an opportunity to talk about other things? I am sure it will.

PFW: A few weeks ago you qualified the sense of urgency to get this deal done as a "14" on a scale of one to 10. Are you at a place now where you're comfortable where you can get something done? Basically: Would you say the talks are on schedule, or are you in a bit of catch-up mode as far as sealing something up by March?

Smith: (laughs) Let me give you the answer this way: It's important for the players and for the fans to have a deal before the uncapped year. And if this is going to happen, we have a lot of work to do.

PFW: The last round of CBA negotiations went past the initial deadline and included a few extensions before the deal was signed — has there been any talk yet about being willing to extend the deadline if you are still at loggerheads in March?

Smith: You mean can we push out the uncapped year? We haven't had any of those discussions yet. One thing I have promised our players that we are willing to do is if we don't have a deal by mid-January, I have told our players that we are committed to finding five straight days — whether here (Washington, D.C.) or in New York (at the NFL headquarters) — where we just lock ourselves up and try to get a deal done. So far, that has not been met with any encouraging response from the league.