The collective bargaining agreement between the NFL and players expires after the 2020 season, and initial talks this year on a new one provided optimism that an accord could be reached by the start of the 2019 season.



But expectations have since been tempered as the union urges players to prepare for the worst.



“I don’t think we’re anticipating it at this time,” Broncos kicker Brandon McManus, the team’s NFL Players Association player representative, said of a potential lockout in 2021. “There are still two full seasons we have to go through, this year and the next. I know that initially, in the beginning, I think the talks were positive, just some rumblings. I don’t think they’ve gone as well since then. So what the (players association) has done is they don’t want anything to happen like it did last time they had a lockout with guys taking out ridiculous loans with these huge interest rates. We’re just...