The U.S. 8th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled in favor of NFL owners and granted a temporary stay on a lockout Friday.

This means the NFL Lockout is back on effective today.

The timing of the ruling is rather strange under the circumstances.

First, judge Susan Nelson lifted the lockout on Wednesday, hours before the start of Thursday’s NFL Draft. On cue, the owners appealed Nelson’s decision.

Now, the appeal process has worked in the league’s favor…in time for the end of its annual draft.

The conspiracy theorists out there may think this whole process was nothing more than to cultivate positive league attention for a few days before going back into the proverbial lockout bunker.

Whatever the case, we are back to square one.