The continuing labor problems of the National Football League won't stop the draft this week and most likely won't affect the start of the regular season, assuming cooler heads and mediators prevail.

  Draftees and free agents will still be physically ready for the grind of a 16-game (and in the future a likely 18-game) season. What they will miss is the necessary training for the rigors of dealing with the media on a daily basis.

   We have conducted social media and communications training for the NFL for the past 15 years, including sessions for head  and assistant coaches. Unless the lockout ends before the start of training camp, these and other preparatory sessions NFL clubs offer (violence prevention, gambling issues, etc) may become casualties for this upcoming campaign.

  Incoming players, even from some of the top programs, often think that four years of dealing with reporters makes them ready to deal what they are going to face in the NFL. When we return to clubs each year, many of them come up to us and say how much new they learned and how it brushed away their initial skepticism: dealing with the NFL media is a different universe than in college. You will see how many of even the elite need additional help after the endless rounds of NFL draft coverage that begin on Thursday. It is often a smorgasbord of cliches and uncomfortable repartee.

   On the college level, football players are often screened from the really tough questions. They also have limited availability and should a coach, media relations director or individual not want to talk on a certain day, that's fine. They don't have to.

   Quite a different story in the pros. The scramble for quotes and sound bites starts from the moment they are drafted, right through mini-camps and pre-season practices and of course during the regular season. Blew a tackle, lined up in the wrong coverage, fumbled a kick off? There is no hiding or electing not to talk.

   Throw in the increased scrutiny from social media and new media sites such as Facebook and the hundreds of bloggers out there and new NFL hopefuls find themselves in a fishbowl existence way beyond any college experience.

   Communications' training is a vital link to the adjustment into the pros; you just can't throw a 10-minute power point session together or ask a beat reporter to come in and talk to them. That's like inviting the wolf into the hen house. Unfortunately, unless something is settled soon, many of the newer players won't have that education in their arsenal.

   Bengals' coach Marvin Lewis told us before our training session with the Cincinnati Bengals last summer that communications' skills in the days of 21st century media is essential is all parts of NFL life. That is why he mandated his entire team go through a program during the pre-season just as they did would conditioning or tackling drills.  It is a message that is important not only for other NFL and professional franchises but college programs alike. You wouldn't bring in someone without a medical degree to talk to them about proper physical training nor would you bring in a first-year law student to warn them about the complexities of the legal system. The same is true for dealing with today's new and social media.

  Let's hope the contest moves out of the courtroom into the bargaining table and a settlement is reached soon!