Judge Susan Nelson, whose name is an anagram for A Sunned Lesson Jug, is certainly beating the NFL and the former NFLPA over the head with a lesson jug at the moment.

The two sides went to court last week to plead their respective cases to Nelson, with Nelson hearing the arguments and then saying she'd need at least two weeks to decide. At that point, I was ready to start eating a big bowl of forced optimism, hoping mediation would start back up.

Now it appears it's going to whether the chieftains on either side like it or not. According to the invaluable Adam Schefter, Nelson is "imposing forced mediation" on both, which makes her sound a little bit like the most awesome tyrant ever. Because we all know the only way this is going to not devolve into a protracted and awful court battle that stretches through the summer is if the owners and the players sit down and actually hammer out an agreement. Mediation is a critical step on that path.

The only thing we're missing at this point is a timeline, but with any luck this mediation will be landing within the next few days. Maybe a lot of luck, but I've got a spring in my step this morning.

Will this produce an agreement? It's hard to say, but I give Nelson props for recognizing the ideal solution to this problem and doing what she can to push the two bickering battalions toward it.