We dodged one doomsday Saturday, but there’s another looming that, it appears, cannot be avoided.

And I’m not talking about the pending cataclysmic earthquake that will whisk (some of us) to heaven in a rapture set to befall us Oct. 21.

I’m talking about the No Football League.

Just when you think things can’t get any more apocalyptic when it comes to the current NFL work stoppage, it does.

The rhetoric is turning my stomach as much as when I catch a glimpse of Brian Baldinger’s grotesquely crooked pinky finger on the NFL Network, or when I see a highlight of Joe Theismann’s leg getting snapped like a twig by Lawrence Taylor.

It’s hard to take any side in this debacle.

The owners are trying their best, though, to make everyone hate them.

Several teams announced layoffs this week to cope with the lockout

they caused. But the people getting the pink slips aren’t those in the high-paid positions that are pretty much useless during a work stoppage, positions like “coach,” or “general manager,” or “president of football operations,” but the every day working stiffs who pull down a cool $20 an hour.Those are the employees getting laid off.I may not be a six-figure employee working in a public relations department for an NFL franchise, but it seems to me that would be a pretty bad move by the league’s owners.Most of their fans are working stiffs who pull down a cool $20 an hour.Showing the “little people” the door while they duke it out with the players over billions doesn’t seem to me to be very smart.Then again, this whole mess seems pretty dumb. Maybe someone should give these owners a Wonderlic test to take.The players aren’t completely without culpability in this disaster, either.DeMaurice Smith, the executive director of the NFLPA (which doesn’t exist anymore) doesn’t miss a chance to rattle his saber whenever he speaks about the work stoppage.Just in the last two weeks, Smith has said the NFLPA (which doesn’t exist) won’t just “shut up and play” and compared the NFL owners to a cartel.Those are some pretty harsh statements that do nothing but build even more walls between the parties.Not that they are talking very much anyway.Both sides are waiting for the courts to make decisions for them. That’s the real problem now.Instead of talking and trying to make some headway, the two sides are in a holding pattern until June 3 when the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals is expected to shoot down the players’ request to lift the lockout.Then, who knows what will happen.Probably nothing.And we’ll be watching the Hamilton Tiger-Cats take on the Montreal Alouettes instead of the Steeler-Ravens this September.Welcome to the End of Days, No Football League style.Mike Kilroy is a staff writer for the Butler Eagle.