While NFL owners and players appear to be inching toward a resolution of the league's long lockout, a group of retired players is clamoring to be more involved in the discussions.

NFL coaches are teaming up with the players in their legal fight to end the owner-imposed lockout.

Attorneys for the players filed a 39-page argument in the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis on Friday.

The NFL cleared the way for some basic football operations to begin at 8 a.m. EDT Friday, five days after a federal judge declared the lockout illegal and nearly seven weeks after it began.

The NFL and its locked-out players wrapped up their fourth day of court-ordered talks Wednesday with few signs of progress and no plans to meet again until mid-May.

The NFL and its locked-out players have opened a fourth day of court-ordered talks at the federal courthouse in Minneapolis.

The NFL and its locked-out players have wrapped up a third day of court-ordered talks at the federal courthouse in Minneapolis.

The NFL and its players resumed court-ordered mediation Tuesday with a federal judge's decision expected soon on a request to immediately halt a lockout now in its second month.