Though some might believe that the looming decision by owners as to whether the Collective Bargaining Agreement will be scuttled two years early requires 24 of them to decide to pull the plug, a league source tells us that the plug will be pulled unless 24 of the owners decide to continue with the deal.

And that’s a huge distinction.

As a practical matter, only seven votes are needed to kill the deal early.  Bills owner Ralph Wilson and Bengals president Mike Brown voted against the CBA extension in 2006, and there’s no reason to believe that they’ve changed their minds. 

Meanwhile, Broncos owner Pat Bowlen and Pats owner Robert Kraft recently have articulated concerns about the CBA.  So if they don’t vote to extend, only five more like minds are needed.

Per the source, there’s a growing feeling that, in the end, there will be more than enough votes to trigger the early expiration.

But the source also points out that some of the owners who already are taking strident positions about opting out of the CBA early really can’t afford to take a work stoppage, due to their specific debt situations arising from the purchase of their franchises and/or stadium construction deals.

As we said earlier this week, the time is now for the league and the union to get to work on an extension.  By next year at this time, the last capped year will be wreaking havoc on salary caps throughout the league — and making the owners more inclined to take an uncapped year in 2010.  Once that happens a work stoppage (i.e., no games for us to watch) becomes less avoidable.