No two league situations will ever be the same. But there is a flavor of what happened in the NHL. The owners apparently think that they will not accept a higher number than 56.2. And Gene Upshaw has drawn a line in the sand which he apparently is not willing to cross. That has all of the flavor of an impasse where truly neither side will budge.
The key to the whole thing may be the TV contract. If it doesn't default if the NFL teams field players without a union, then what is the downside for the owners? Not a whole lot except that their product may not draw as much stadium revenue for all teams. But since that revenue is shared between the teams, that may not be that much of an impact - especially without any constraints as to how little the owners have to spend for a payroll. If the owners don't blink, the players' union is in the same miserably weak position as the NHL players' union. Actually, probably even weaker since, as I mentioned, the TV contract is such a LARGE part of a team's income, they can sit back and clip the coupons and not lose money, unlike the NHL.
The only hope for the players is that the owners will be stupid and spend more money than they would under a cap environment AND that the overall revenue of the teams isn't impacted so much that even with stupid spending, there is enough money for the players to get more. Even so, 1700 or 1800 of the 1952 possible players in the NFL will probably make less because the 'stars' will get the lion's share of the pie. But the superstars and agent's would rather have that and the rank and file will, as usual, allow their pay to get whacked by the superstars winning the lottery. Doesn't make much sense does it ?