Sen. Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) signaled a fresh willingness on Tuesday to move past his blockade on Pentagon nominees as his Republican colleagues threaten to force his hand in the stalemate.

The party stood behind Tuberville for months, even as Republicans privately fretted about the impact his holds were having on military readiness. The crisis reached a turning point last week when several GOP senators marched to the floor to challenge his blockade, prompting Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI) to convene a special conference meeting to find an off-ramp.

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Tuberville entered that meeting on Tuesday with a menu of options, and red lines, as his conference attempts to move him off his blockade. But it was a shift in attitude that has given his colleagues new hope that the party can get past the impasse.

Tuberville has defiantly rejected calls to drop his holds, declaring that he works for the people of Alabama, not Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY). The drama reached its climax on Wednesday when he objected, one by one, to his Republican colleagues' attempts to confirm 61 nominees by voice vote.

But on Tuesday, Tuberville struck a conciliatory note, calling himself a "team player" open to finding a way out of the crisis.

"We knew sooner or later there's going to be a resolution to this," he told reporters. "We just got to look through all the situations where we might be able to get through this."

Most of his proposed solutions, including repeal of the Pentagon abortion policy at the center of his fight, are nonstarters for Democrats. But he called the ideas thrown around by other senators, possibly including a lawsuit to challenge the policy, "good suggestions."

What's more, Tuberville suggested he would be on board with an easing of his blockade in the form of unanimous consent requests and cloture petitions that, in effect, force a vote in the chamber.

The Senate has already moved six nominees since last month using those petitions.

"We can do more cloture votes. We can do a lot of cloture votes," he said. "We can do some UCs here and there to help with people that really need to be promoted for what's going on right now around the world."

That would not solve the underlying problem: More than 400 nominees are caught up in his holds, a number that will rise to more than 600 by the year's end. But it would take some pressure off Tuberville, who is expected to face more revolts on the Senate floor.

Meanwhile, a Democratic resolution making its way through the Rules Committee could circumvent his blockade entirely if nine Republicans vote for it.

Republicans did not settle on a path forward at the meeting, but Tuberville did agree to sit down with a small group of colleagues to discuss the next steps.

"He didn't say 'yes,' but he didn't say 'no' either," Sen. John Hoeven (R-NE) said of the options presented to Tuberville. "He said he wanted to consider a number of these, and then he also indicated he had some ideas that he may bring back to us.”

Tuberville expects Sens. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) and Joni Ernst (R-IA), two of the defense hawks who challenged his holds, to be part of those talks. He also mentioned Sens. Mike Lee (R-UT) and Johnson, two Republicans sympathetic to his blockade.

Young, another Republican who challenged Tuberville on Wednesday, called the meeting progress, even if it did not yield an outcome.

"It was important that we have a family conversation and talk through the issues and potential solutions," he said. "We did that — that's forward progress — and now, Sen. Tuberville needs to reflect on next steps, and I think he's going to do that."

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"I take him at his word," Young added.

The first of those informal meetings was expected to take place Tuesday night.