Last time I checked in on the NFL in this space, the Packers had just beaten the Steelers in Super Bowl XLV. The game was dramatic, the result in question until the final minute. It was a prime example of why the NFL has become so popular.

But when the lights clicked off in Dallas, it dawned on everybody that we might not get to see these stars again for a long time.

The 2011 offseason was going to get ugly, and not just because of the shirtless photos of 320-pound defensive tackles from the draft combine. The collective bargaining agreement between the owners and the NFL Players’ Association players’ — the 1993 deal that allowed unrestricted free agency for players and imposed a salary cap on team owners — was set to expire March 3.

There were encouraging signs in negotiations leading up to that day, including a federal mediator’s involvement and a deadline extension, but commissioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith ran out of time to forge a new deal.

After the owners started the lockout, the players decertified their union, clearing the way for anti-trust litigation against the NFL. In preliminary court hearings in St. Paul, Minn., a federal judge told both sides to go back to a mediated negotiating table. After initial disagreement on where those meetings would take place, the court appointed a judge to oversee them in Minneapolis starting Thursday.

For the most part, the public has ignored the labor unrest, focusing instead on draft talk. The draft will continue as planned from April 28-30, but players won’t be able to sign contracts until the labor issues are resolved.

Once it’s over, though, fans will be facing a football-less wasteland, devoid of mini-camps and free agent movement.

I want to be optimistic that the season will start on schedule, but it’s hard when workers file anti-trust lawsuits against their bosses. Hand your boss a fake court summons one day and see what happens. It’ll make for a good story at the unemployment office.

And it’s hard to stay optimistic when the two sides are so far apart in their demands.

However the $9 billion in revenue is divvied up — owners claim players get 60 percent, while players say it’s more like 50 percent — owners say it isn’t enough to cover the growing expenses they face. Their employees want to see numerical proof, but the owners have repeatedly told them no. Transparency is evidently overrated in this workplace.

The league also wants the players to play two more regular season games without an increase in annual salary, another profit-maximizing ploy for the owners.

With the two sides so out of touch with fans, the only side affected by these negotiations that has no voice at the table, it makes things that much more incomprehensible for those who love watching the game.

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like hearing rich guys bickering over percentages of billions of dollars when the national unemployment rate pushing 9 percent. And rarely do people who are not millionaires or billionaires benefit when millionaires and billionaires negotiate with each other.

Players and owners alike are taking the league’s popularity for granted. They think that no matter what they do, people will continue to watch and the money will keep rolling in, either through ticket sales (the average cost for an NFL ticket in 2010 was $76.47) or the billions of dollars league makes through TV deals with Fox, CBS, NBC and ESPN.

That doesn’t have to be the case, but it probably will be, meaning more money for the people who act like children that don’t know how sharing works.

At some point, the players will be back on the field after one side strong-arms the other into submission.

However it works out, it’ll be fans who lose the most. And unlike the owners and players, they’ll have no way to recoup those losses.