They’re still talking. Above all else, that’s the most important thing to remember.

The announcement late Thursday afternoon that the players and owners have agreed on a 24-hour extension in the CBA talks doesn’t mean it’s a slam-dunk there won’t be an issue with the 2011 season. But it represents a chance that the two sides will eventually be able to prevent the first NFL work stoppage since 1987.

When word came down, federal mediator George S. Cohen, who is handling the negotiation, issued the briefest of statements confirming the extension: “The parties have agreed to a one-day extension.” The league was a little more forthcoming — but not much — saying: “Federal Mediation and Conciliation Service Director George Cohen has announced that the NFL and NFL Players Association have agreed to extend the expiration of the CBA for 24 hours and continue negotiating under the direction of Mr. Cohen. The CBA now is scheduled to expire on Friday night at midnight. The agreement by both sides to refrain from comment on the negotiations remains in place.”

“For all of our fans who dig our game, we appreciate your patience as we work through this,” NFLPA Chief De Maurice Smith told reporters. “We’re going to keep working. We want to play football.”

According to several reports, the extension was granted in hopes of the two sides being able to reach an agreement on a longer extension sometime Friday, likely a one-week period. (ESPN reported late Thursday that Cohen had persuaded both sides to agree on a seven- to ten-day extension of the talks.) Even though both sides remain divided on key issues like a rookie wage scale, an 18-game regular season and division of roughly $9 billion in revenue, the fact that they are encouraged enough to want to keep talking provides a small spark of optimism in a process that’s had relatively little good news — at least publicly — since the two sides really started seriously talking last month.

“We’re working hard,” NFL commissioner Roger Goodell said.

While the league and players’ union met for a 10th day with Cohen, even President Barack Obama weighed in when asked if he would intervene in the dispute.

“I’m a big football fan,” Obama said, “but I also think that for an industry that’s making $9 billion a year in revenue, they can figure out how to divide it up in a sensible way and be true to their fans, who are the ones who obviously allow for all the money that they’re making. So my expectation and hope is that they will resolve it without me intervening, because it turns out I’ve got a lot of other stuff to do.”

If you’re looking for precedent, the deadline extension is similar to what transpired in 2006 when the previous CBA was set to expire. In that case, the NFL and NFLPA ultimately reached a six-year deal without a work stoppage. (The owners ultimately opted out of that deal in 2008, declaring it economically disadvantageous.)

NFL lead negotiator Jeff Pash told reporters the sides had “good discussions and exchanges,” and “we’re going to be back here (Friday) morning.”

However, that cautious good feeling could all go out the window on Friday if the talk of decertification starts to take hold. If the NFLPA does file for decertification (something they would have to do by 4 p.m. to have it affect the current CBA) the players would be allowed to file suit against the owners for restricting trade. (Disbanding the union would be necessary because a union is not allowed to sue a party with which it is collectively bargaining.) If the decertification paperwork is filed before the deadline, it’s a bad sign for negotiations — that would start a chain of events where the whole process would end up in the courts, tying up the talks and almost certainly having long-term effects on the game.

(According to ESPN, that suit would include nine plaintiffs, a group that would include current Patriots Tom Brady and Logan Mankins and former New England linebacker Mike Vrabel.)

In the same way you can look for successful historical precedent when it comes to the “stop the clock” technique both sides employed on Thursday, there’s also a background when it comes to the players’ union filing for decertification. The NFLPA effectively used decertification in 1987 to sue the NFL — that sparked the legal decisions that helped lead to the CBA’s creation in 1993, and later, free agency.

But while decertification could spur the continued evolution of the game and create more opportunities down the road for players, in the short-term, it would be crippling to the current talks.

“Decertification by the union would signal a complete breakdown in negotiations,” said Ron Washburn, who teaches a sports law class at Bryant University and has been following the negotiations closely. “Decertification will allow the players to sue the owners under antitrust law. Collective bargaining is insulated from antitrust law, which is a non-statutory exemption. Decertification will take away that exception, and the players will then go to federal court and sue the owners.”

But for now, there’s another 24 hours to stave off football Armageddon … and maybe, another seven days past that. As for football fans, all they can do is wait and hope that the sides keep talking.