Good morning from Indianapolis where the NFL is ready to parade some 300+ prospects in front of a throng of team personell, coaches, scouts and, of course, the media in what is essentially the job interview of their professional lives. There's very little to no actual football played this weekend at Lucas Oil Stadium. What does happen is essentially a cattle call of would be NFL players parading around in shorts and t-shirts to be examined by 32 different medical staffs and to be run through a series of drills - some football, some not-so-much. And then of course there are the team interviews, where coaches and general managers will try to get a sense of how much football (and life) each guy knows .

While players started arriving yesterday, today is the first availability we'll have with them. Thursday we get the offensive lineman, tight ends and specialists (kickers, punters and long snappers). While we'll be speaking to these guys today, they won't actually be run through their drills until Saturday.  Tomorrow we'll get a chance to speak to the quarterbacks, running backs and wide receivers.

With the scene set, I can tell you right off the bat that the mood here is in stark contrast to what I experienced last year. The CBA negotiations taking place in Washington, D.C. loom over everything. Everyone here, be it coaches, personnel guys, financial advisors, scouts or media members - everyone will be effected if next Thursday comes and goes without an agreement between the NFL and the NFLPA. The teams have a sort of "come to Jesus" meeting scheduled for tonight where presumably they will be presented with everything that is going on in Washington. The union had a special meeting with a small group of influential agents set up but that has been canceled in lieu of the fact that the union is concentrating all their efforts in Washington.

With all that looming in the background, it will be interesting to see what the mood is like inside the stadium today amongst the NFL coaches and general managers. Almost every coach and GM will speak to the media at some point over the course of the next few days (Ted Thompson and Mike McCarthy both speak tomorrow) and they are all bound to get questions about the CBA talks.

In the meantime, I'm getting ready to head over to the stadium and get settled in. You can, of course, follow my live updates on Twitter throughout the week and I'll be posting tons of stuff as the days go by. Hope you enjoy.