As the NFL holds America’s sports pages hostage for the second consecutive week, one big development in the collective bargaining negotiations between the league and its players has come to light: there will not be an 18-game regular season on the horizon.

“First of all, the league has never presented a formal proposal for 18 games,” [NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith] (not pictured) told SI.com. “But more importantly, it’s something that our players don’t want. Eighteen games is not in the best interest of our players’ safety, so we’re not doing it.”

What Smith does want is for the NFL’s teams to share their financial information, a request that the NFL has adamantly opposed for the balance of its existence. Smith retorted the league’s refusal to open its books by asking, “How much financial information would you want before you write a $5 billion check?”

Is this progress? At least they’re arguing about somewhat new things this week. But we’ll have a Chinese pope before the NFL decides to publicly share financial information with anyone. I personally would love a Chinese pope, but that doesn’t mean that I love Chinese everything. And you’ll never find DNA that proves otherwise.