Talks Show Progress on Deal for N.F.L.

ST. LOUIS — Commissioner Roger Goodell and a handful of the most influential N.F.L. owners concluded meetings with DeMaurice Smith, the head of the now-decertified players association, and a group of players Thursday afternoon in Chicago amid indications that for the first time since March, progress could be made on a deal that would end the labor strife that has brought the league to a halt.

After the meetings, which began in secret Tuesday night and stretched into Thursday afternoon, concluded, Chief Magistrate Judge Arthur Boylan, who had been overseeing mediated negotiations, announced that two days of mediation scheduled for next week had been canceled. The two sides, though, are prepared to continue talking, probably at an undisclosed location next week. Boylan will almost certainly be present, although he may not be actively running the negotiations toward a settlement. Boylan was present for the meetings in Chicago, which the N.F.L. initiated by placing the first phone call to Mr. Smith. None of the lawyers who have been involved in early negotiations were present, one of the conditions of the meetings.

And none are expected to attend when the sides resume talking next week. That should please both sides: the players, who were frustrated by the lack of direct negotiations with owners during earlier sessions, and the owners, who thought that the lawyers for the players were more interested in going to court than in negotiating an agreement.

“It went well,” said one person who was present at the meetings but who spoke on condition of anonymity because the court wanted the particulars of the meetings to remain confidential.

Still, others briefed on the meetings urged caution and said a completed deal was, at best, several weeks away even if negotiations went smoothly. The N.F.L.’s goal is to have a deal done by late June or early July, because that would allow several weeks of free agency before training camps open at the end of July and the preseason begins. The N.F.L. and the decertified players association issued a joint statement confirming the talks, but provided no further details.

The driving force behind the meetings, which were held so close to the vest that some owners were not even aware they were taking place, was the calendar. With the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals hearing arguments Friday in the league’s appeal of the injunction that ordered an end to the owners’ lockout of players, the leverage has not yet fully swung to one side. The owners may have the upper hand because a delay has kept the lockout in place, and the court indicated it is likely to reverse the injunction.