Sunday, 11:04 p.m.

The league e-mails this statement to teams and the media: "The NFL and the NFL Players Association have agreed to extend the start of the 2006 league year for 72 hours -- until 12:01 a.m. ET, Thursday, March 9 -- in order to allow the NFL clubs to meet in Dallas on Tuesday to consider the NFL Players Association's offer."

Free agency is on hold again and teams don't yet have to be in compliance with the salary cap, which is a reprieve for cap-strapped teams and players who were going to get jobbed.

Sunday, 11:15 p.m.

League officials burn the midnight oil on Park Avenue in Manhattan. Just now they're returning phone calls. "It's like a 'bend but don't break' defense,'' league spokesman Greg Aiello tells me. "It's not over 'til it's over. They're trying to do everything they can to get a deal done.''

Sunday, 11:36 p.m.

Condon has gotten to five of his clients by this point, telling them they won't be going anywhere on Monday. One, whom he wouldn't identify, had to come back from a vacation and was flying home on Sunday night so he could be ready to fly somewhere else on Monday. "It looks like Tagliabue's accepting the deal,'' Condon says.

I say I don't think it's Tagliabue who needs the sell job; it's the high-revenue-team owners. But for Condon's IMG clients -- Drew Brees, Will Witherspoon, Will Allen, La'Roi Glover -- it doesn't matter who's delaying things. An increase of the cap from $94.5 million to $105 million, which is about how much the deal would go up if the two sides can finally hammer something out, is the most important thing every agent with a player of any skill is rooting for. "If something gets done,'' Condon says, "it's more outlets for every free agent out there.''

Sunday, 11:54 p.m.

Washington cuts LaVar Arrington. No big surprise. But word around the league for weeks has been if a deal isn't done, the 'Skins will have a record number of minimum-salary players and maybe even trade most of their 2006 draft picks for picks in the 2007 draft, when owner Dan Snyder could use the lack of a salary cap to pay players exorbitant salaries he just can't pay right now.

And so it goes. Now the owners will meet in Dallas on Tuesday, and perhaps into Wednesday, to see if they can get a deal done. I've thought all along a deal would not get done, but this latest delay is causing me to waver.

My thought: The sky hasn't fallen. It isn't falling. Football would be different without a salary cap. Different, and definitely not better. But we all need to get a grip. I've heard for the past week how dire a situation it would be if the game lost the cap and the ability to control player costs. I've read in papers and on Web sites, and heard on talk shows how the lack of a cap would be the baseball-ization of the NFL. And I say: Pshaw.

To say that no salary cap would turn the NFL into a league of Yankees (Redskins, Patriots, Cowboys) and Devil Rays (Jaguars, Saints, Bengals) is preposterous. First of all, the Yankees spent $208 million on players last year and the Devil Rays $29 million. In the NFL, a lower-revenue team like Jacksonville is going to take in probably $170 million this year, with the Redskins raking in maybe $310 million. To think Jacksonville would spend $50 million on players and the Redskins $190 million is just idiocy. Won't happen.

The reason football will never become baseball is that, say, when baseball's Kansas City Royals know that Carlos Beltran's market value is $15 million a year, they know he's going to have to make it somewhere other than in Kansas City. In football, if Byron Leftwich becomes a top-five quarterback, he'll get his money in Jacksonville -- the same way Carson Palmer got his in Cincinnati, the same way Brett Favre got his in Green Bay, the same way Ben Roethlisberger will get his in Pittsburgh.