With NFL players and owners looking at a deadline of midnight Friday before a potential lockout — and league’s first work stoppage since 1987 — the two sides have dissolved into name-calling, going back and forth Thursday afternoon and evening in the media as time ticked down toward the expiration of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

After a 15th day of meeting with federal mediator George Cohen in Washington, D.C., league general counsel and lead negotiator Jeff Pash drew first blood Thursday night, openly speculating if the players had the same “commitment” to finding a solution that the owners did.

“It’s a process. It’s not an event. And things can come together quickly, and things can fall apart quickly. All I can say is, we’re committed to the process. It’s not glamorous, it’s not easy,” Pash told reporters.

“But we will work at it as hard and as long as it takes. We really do believe in the value of collective bargaining, we really do believe in our relationship with the players association and, I’ve said it many times, if both sides have an equal commitment to getting this deal done, it will get done.

“I don’t know if both sides have an equal commitment.”

The NFLPA quickly responded to the “commitment” charge, intimating that the owners had paved the way for a lockout when they negotiated a $4 billion television deal as insurance in case a lockout took place. First, spokesman George Atallah fired off an e-mail to The Associated Press, ripping Pash and the owners.

“Jeff Pash was part of an executive team that sold the networks a $4 billion ticket to a game they knew wouldn’t be played,” said Atallah. “The only thing they’ve been committed to is a lockout.”

That was followed by an equally strong statement from NFLPA chief DeMaurice Smith, who was on his way home for the day but turned around and headed back to talk with reporters.

“I think it’s important that everyone and all of our fans understand and know the commitment of our players to this process,” Smith said. “I understand that there’s probably some things that Jeff Pash has to say. But this is the truth. We know that as early as March of 2009, from the discovery in the television case, that the National Football League, engaged in a strategy to get $4 billion of television money to lock out our fans lock out our players, even if the games weren’t played.”

The back-and-forth was also taken to Twitter. While waiting for the talks to continue on Thursday — they were eventually called off for the night — Atallah jokingly solicited song titles with the word “waiting” in the title. Later, once things were scrubbed for the night, Atallah Tweeted: “I would like to request an expense credit from the owners on the last 3 hours of my life.” And NFL spokesman Greg Aiello added his own take, jibing the players by Tweeting: “When is union going to respond to our 150 pages of draft CBA provisions that they received eight days ago. Waiting.”

The two sides are scheduled to meet Friday, and according to reports, there are three major sticking points between the two sides. First, the division of $9 billion in revenue — the owners are looking for an addition $1 billion in the new deal, saying the expenses are needed to grow the game. Second, the move from a 16-game regular-season schedule to an 18-game slate, something that Smith said earlier this week was off the table. Third, the implementation of a rookie wage scale, a mechanism that would contain the rapidly spiraling contracts of first-year players.

Of the three, there seems to be some genuine movement on the idea of the rookie wage scale, with a recent report from Yahoo! Sports indicating that the two sides had agreed on the basic framework of a new deal.

The two sides have already extended the deadline twice — once last Thursday, when the two sides agreed on a 24-hour extension, and then, a seven-day extension the following day. It’s conceivable that the two sides could agree on another extension on Friday before the deadline.

If not, the next step is believed to be decertification from the players’ union, which would set the stage for the union to sue 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.