Sean Carroll has made a second blog post on the topic, to explain why faster-than-light neutrinos do not necessarily imply time travel.
The usual argument that faster than light implies the ability to travel on a closed loop assumes Lorentz invariance; but if we discover a true FTL particle, your first guess should be that Lorentz invariance is broken. (Not your only possible guess, but a reasonable one.) Consider, for example, the existence of a heretofore unobserved fluid pervading the universe with a well-defined rest frame, that neutrinos interact with but photons do not. Or a vector field with similar properties. There are various ways we could imagine some background that actually picks out a preferred frame of reference, violating Lorentz invariance spontaneously.
And, just to reiterate the main point:
The odds are still long against the OPERA result being right at face value. But even if it’s right, it doesn’t immediately imply that neutrinos are time-travelers.
Sean Carroll has made a second blog post on the topic, to explain why faster-than-light neutrinos do not necessarily imply time travel.
And, just to reiterate the main point: