Sean Payton says he’s been honest, will return in 2013

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Saints coach Sean Payton publicly answered questions for the first time since he was suspended for the entire 2012 season on Tuesday, telling reporters at the league meeting that during his two visits to the league office as part of the NFL’s bounty investigation, he told the truth.

“In the two trips to New York I made sure to do everything in my power to answer the questions honestly,” Payton said.

That would seem to contradict what NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said about being lied to during the investigation, and that the lying continued into the past several weeks. However, in specifying that he tried to be honest during his two trips to New York, Payton may have been splitting hairs: Answering every question honestly while he visited the league office doesn’t preclude withholding some information in visits to the league office, or lying during questioning that took place outside the league office.

Other comments Payton made include:

– Payton says he’s “100 percent certain” he’ll be the Saints’ head coach in 2013.

– Asked if the bounty system implemented by former Saints defensive coordinator Gregg Williams was the kind of thing Payton was hoping for when he hired Williams to instill toughness in his defense, Payton answered, “Obviously not.”

– Payton said he has had no contact with Williams over the last few weeks.

– Payton said he has been touched by the outpouring of support he has received. “Our fans back in New Orleans have been amazing,” Payton said. “My peers, guys that I’m close with in this league, the players on our team, it’s like a family. That’s the thing that gets you through something like this.”

– Payton said that to his knowledge, no opponents the Saints put a bounty on were seriously injured.

– Asked if he might work on television this year, Payton said he’s keeping all his options open.

– Bill Parcells has been helpful to Payton, but Payton doesn’t know if Parcells will step in as interim head coach this year. “I’ve really called him just as a mentor, someone to shoot ideas off of,” Payton said. “I speak to him pretty regularly, in regards to advice. . . . The specifics in regard to him coaching, and I’ve read the reports, that would be something that [General Manager Mickey Loomis] and I, and our owner, and Bill would deal with at a later time. Right now it’s really been as an advisor.”

AP

As a small army of news organizations chases the Aaron Hernandez story, there will be conflicting and, necessarily, incorrect reports.

Our goal will in part be to sift through those reports, making sure you know what the various outlets have uncovered.

And I say all of that because the latest report will raise some eyebrows and/or drop some jaws.  According to Karen Anderson of WBZ-TV in Boston, Hernandez has not been ruled out as a suspect in the death of an “associate” found roughly a mile from his North Attleboro home.  Anderson also reports that Hernandez currently is not cooperating with authorities.  (There had been conflicting reports as to whether Hernandez was initially uncooperative.)

Anderson cites a single unnamed law-enforcement source for both pieces of information.  Without knowing who the source is, how the source knows what the source knows, and whether the source has an agenda, it’s impossible to assess the accuracy of the report.

WBZ-TV also reports that the victim is Odin Lloyd, 27, of Dorcester.  Odin played semi-pro football with the Boston Bandits.

His body was found by a jogger, who told WBZ-TV that when police arrived they said it appeared Odin had been shot somewhere else and dumped in the industrial park roughly a mile from Hernandez’s home.

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Veteran linebacker Takeo Spikes, who has been a free agent since the Chargers cut him in March, would like to play this season. But he’s in no hurry to sign with a new team.

Spikes said on NFL AM that at age 36, he doesn’t get excited about the idea of sweating through a hot summer practice, and he doesn’t think he needs it. So he’d prefer to sign with some team toward the end of the preseason.

“Do I want to be on a team at the start of training camp? Not really,” Spikes said. “After 15 years of playing in the league, they’re not making anything new up. The only thing new you have to understand is terminology, and I would like to think I’ve been around long enough to understand that.”

Spikes compares this offseason to his offseason five years ago: He was cut by the Eagles in March, then waited until mid-August to sign with the 49ers

“I went through this in 2008 before I signed with the San Francisco 49ers, and who knows, maybe it can happen again,” Spikes said.

Spikes is healthy, has started all 16 games three straight years, and still has something he can contribute. Some team will probably come calling in the next few weeks. And Spikes is interested — but he may take his time answering that call.

AP

Giants receiver Hakeem Nicks opted to treat the team’s voluntary OTAs as voluntary.  Even though, as a practical matter, they aren’t.

As a result, he’d been called out by coach Tom Coughlin, quarterback Eli Manning (sort of) and, in turn, by fans and media members who think Nicks should have been there.

But Nicks still hasn’t supplied a clear explanation for his decision to stay away from the involuntary voluntary sessions.  Via Ralph Vacchiano of the New York Daily News, Nicks again denied that the absence was related to his contract during an appearance on NFL Network.

It’s a tomato-tomahto proposition.  While Nicks didn’t stay away in an effort to force the Giants to give him a new contract, he opted to reduce the number of times he’d be exposed to serious injury while he continues to bear the financial risks associated with tearing an ACL or popping an Achilles tendon in the final year of his rookie deal.

Nicks will likely never admit it, and he doesn’t have to.  It’s obvious that Nicks chose protecting himself (and, in turn, his future earnings) over OTAs.  It was the right decision.

And if the Giants wanted Nicks to be at OTAs, they should have worked out a long-term deal that would have shifted the injury risk from the player to the team.

AP

The Buccaneers have added another player to the mix at cornerback.

He doesn’t come with the expectations of Darrelle Revis or the promise of second-round pick Johnthan Banks, but Michael Adams will be heading to training camp with the team all the same. The Buccaneers announced Wednesday that they have signed the six-year veteran and waived guard Jeremy Lewis.

Adams has spent all six of those years with the Cardinals, playing in 74 games and starting seven times before playing a limited role on defense in Arizona last season. Adams has three interceptions over the course of his career.

With Revis, Banks and Eric Wright on hand, the Bucs won’t be looking for Adams to do too much for them on defense in the coming season. His experience is a nice thing to have should Banks or other young corners struggle to show they’re ready for roles on the defense, but that experience isn’t going to buy him more than a fighting chance to wind up on the 53-man roster come the end of the summer.

AP

Mark Barron didn’t really need the money, but Darrelle Revis needed the number.

PFT has confirmed that the Buccaneers newcomer at cornerback has indeed forked over $50,000 for the rights to No. 24, the number he wore with the Jets.  The figure was first reported by Uni-Watch.com.

Revis wore No. 25 at Pitt, but he is far better known for the NFL number he was assigned upon joining the Jets in 2007.

Barron, a top-1o pick in 2012, had no extensive attachment to No. 24.  At Alabama, Barron wore No. 4.  He has since switched to No. 23.

It’s unclear whether anyone had to pay Nike for the change in Barron’s number.  In multiple past circumstances, a player who wanted to change his jersey number faced the reality of an invoice from Reebok for the inventory of jerseys bearing his current number.

In this specific case, Nike likely will make a lot more in the long run from Revis-24 jerseys than Nike will lose from the pre-existing stock of Barron-24.

AP

Vikings linebacker Chad Greenway had arthroscopic surgery on his left knee last week, an operation that is keeping him on the sideline during this week’s minicamp.

The minicamp marks the end of the Vikings’ offseason schedule and the team will be off until the start of training camp after Thursday’s practice. Greenway couldn’t give a 100 percent guarantee that he’d be on the field for the first practice of training camp, but he did say that any absence will have nothing to do with surgery he had in June to avoid the possibility of his meniscus causing him more problems when the regular season is right around the corner.

“There will be no doubt in my mind unless I get in a car accident or something. From the knee perspective, it’ll be 100 percent, good to go,” Greenway said, via 1500ESPN.com. “I didn’t want to be that guy in training camp or Week 1 saying, ‘Oh, I’ve got to miss two.’ That’s not my mentality. I’d rather, unfortunately, miss these practices in order to get ready for the season. Just kind of felt like it was the right thing to do.”

We’d agree with that assessment. Greenway’s a vital part of the Vikings defense and the minicamp time is relatively insignificant to a player who hasn’t missed a game in the last six seasons.

AP

Browns owner Jimmy Haslam has insisted throughout that he knew nothing about the fraud being committed at his chain of truck stops.

But the list of his employees who admit to it continues to grow.

According to Michael Sangiacomo of the Cleveland Plain Dealer, three more employees of Pilot Flying J pleaded guilty to federal charges Tuesday of cheating trucking compannies out of fuel discounts.

One of the Tuesday pleas, from regional sales manager Kevin Clark, includes an agreement to cooperate with the investigation. Two other employees pleaded guilty last month to conspiracy charges, and promised to cooperate as well.

A spokesman for Haslam continued to portray it as an isolated problem.

“We are disappointed in the actions of these employees towards our customers,” spokesman Tom Ingram said. “We assure our customers that our five-step plan to correct any wrongdoing and to make certain these actions do not happen again is ongoing, and that our customers’ confidence in the vast majority of our 23,000 team members nationwide remains well-placed.”

The investigation continues, and with more employees (of sufficiently high positions) offering information to prosecutors, it seems inevitable that that majority will continue to shrink.

AP

When 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh insisted that the replacement for Michael Crabtree (Achilles) would come from the current roster, it was presumed that the replacement would be a receiver.

As it turns out, the Niners could be thinking about using tight end Vernon Davis as a wideout while Crabtree recovers.

According to Grant Cohn of the Santa Rosa Press Democrat, Davis participated “exclusively” as a receiver during the team’s recent mandatory minicamp.

While plenty of tight ends line up in the slot these days, Davis could actually be lining up wide — especially since Anquan Boldin is expected to be San Fran’s primary inside receiver.

Davis, a top-10 draft pick in 2006, ran the 40-yard dash in 4.38 seconds at the Scouting Combine.  So he definitely has the speed to play on the outside.  He also has the size to fight off press coverage, and to manhandle most cornerbacks who would try to get to the ball before him.

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In 2009, Jason Smith was the second player chosen in the NFL Draft.

This year, his latest coach is talking about him the way you’d talk about an undrafted rookie.

As MDS mentioned in the one-liners, offensive tackle Jason Smith is trying to shake the draft bust label that was rightly applied to him with the Saints, and they seem receptive.

“I think oftentimes, you take a peek at a player that was selected as high as he was and graded out as high as he was,” Saints coach Sean Payton said, via Mike Triplett of the New Orleans Times-Picayune. “He is a tremendous worker and has athletic ability.

“So it’s another opportunity, and it’s oftentimes you are able to get a player maybe his second time around or third time around that can come in and find a niche.”

Smith never justified the pick the Rams invested in him, and the Jets let him walk after he was sent there in a swap of bad ideas.

Now, the Saints are letting him compete for the starting left tackle job with Charles Brown and rookie Terron Armstead, a competition Payton said was “absolutely” open.

Smith was reflective when asked about his journey, talking about religion and making his plight seem more dramatic than perhaps it is.

“Upon the moment I received salvation, I understood that my calling is now to suffer, just like Christ did. That’s who I am,” Smith said. “So therefore, what I went through, my experiences, whether it be football or life, it brought me to a point of patience. So with patience I have experience, and with experience I have hope. And hope makes me not ashamed of what I went through.

“So everything I went through has made me who I am as a person. As far as the football stuff, it’s still a day-to-day deal. As far as my life, it’s a day-to-day deal. So I desire to know God’s heart. That’s what my focus is.”

The Rams didn’t need him to save the souls of the world, they just needed him to block. The Saints are offering him another chance to do just that.

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The NFL undoubtedly hears plenty of complaints from plenty of teams on plenty of issues.  Most of those complaints are communicated privately to the league office.

The Bills have opted to take one specific gripe public, via the team’s official website.

The concern arises from one of the apparently unavoidable scheduling quirks — the number of games a given team plays against opponents who have had extra rest, whether from a full-blown bye week or the mini-bye that comes from playing on a Thursday.

As Chris Brown of BuffaloBills.com points out, the Bills in 2012 faced four opponents in a five-week span who had extra time to prepare.  Buffalo lost three of the four games.

This year, according to an analysis performed by BuffaloBills.com, the Bills lead the league with five games coming against opponents who will have extra rest.  It happens twice against the Jets, once against the Dolphins, and against the Bengals and Jaguars.

Brown also points out that the Buffalo bye week has been “compromised” by the fact that the Bills return to play the Falcons, who will be operating on 10 days rest after playing on a Thursday night.

“Compromised” may not be the right word here.  The purpose of the bye isn’t to give every team a crack at playing another team that has had only one week to get ready.  It’s to give each team one week of extra rest.  (Actually, some would say it’s to give the networks one more week of regular-season programming.)

The Bills also have broken down the number of games every other team plays against opponents who receive extra rest.  Fourteen teams only have one game against an opponent who gets extra rest.  Three, including the Patriots, have zero.

“It’s very difficult to call the NFL a league of parity when there’s one team with half of their division games against clubs with extra time to rest and prepare, while another in the same division has none,” Brown writes. “The league simply has to do better.”

We doubt that doing better is doable, given the various other balls Howard Katz juggles when trying to lay out a plan for 256 regular-season games over a 17-week period.  But we’re nevertheless intrigued by the decision of one of the 32 franchises to use its website as the platform for shooting an arrow at the NFL scheduling process.

AP

Before the 2012 season, the Vikings envisioned getting a lot of production from their pair of tight ends in the passing game.

They got half of what they were looking for as Kyle Rudolph turned in a Pro Bowl season as a reliable and frequent target for Christian Ponder. His 53 catches ranked second on the team and were 45 more catches than John Carlson had after signing a five-year, $25 million contract with the Vikes as a free agent during the offseason.

Carlson missed the entire 2011 season because of a shoulder injury and dealt with a knee issue and a concussion during his dismal 2012 season, but he isn’t willing to say that injuries were the reason for his unproductive campaign. Which doesn’t mean he has a firm handle on what did go wrong.

“I don’t have an answer for you. If I knew, I would have tried … I did try to rectify the situation,” Carlson said, via Bob Sansevere of the Pioneer Press. “It never came together. Missing that time in camp wasn’t good because they didn’t get a feel for what I’m capable of doing. And I didn’t get a feel for the offense and the way Christian (Ponder) throws the ball, and how to run-block. It was a debacle. I’m thankful to be out here and be healthy and have another opportunity.”

Carlson, who took a pay cut in order to stick around for that second opportunity, is now three years removed from back-to-back 50-plus catch seasons with the Seahawks so it’s probably a stretch to expect him to match Rudolph’s production as a receiver. There’s a lot of room between that kind of output and what Carlson turned in last season, however, and something in the middle would be a welcome addition to the Vikings attack in the 2013 season.

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In the league only 11 years, the Texans waited until their 10th season to make it to the postseason.  Which should skew their Mt. Rushmore toward the more recent contributors.

It didn’t.  In large part because the most important player in team history has been there for 10 of the 11 seasons.  And receiver Andre Johnson has shown no signs of slowing down.

Along with Johnson, owner Bob McNair, running back Arian Foster, and defensive end J.J. Watt made it onto the mountain.

PFT Planet agreed with me (which is becoming more common in this process) on all four men.

For the explanation and discussion and whatever else we talked about last night on NBCSN’s Pro Football Talk, featuring former Titans tight end Frank Wycheck in studio, click the little triangle thing below.

AP

Jake Locker had to come back from shoulder surgery.

And he still has to prove he can stop throwing picks.

But the Titans quarterback has done something more important during OTAs,, taking control of the locker room and making the job his own.

“The thing I wanted him to do, No. 1, was to take over the team,” offensive coordinator Dowell Loggains said, via Jim Wyatt of the Tennessean. “And this has become his team to the point where he takes over and spreads the message. Watching his interaction with the other players, and how they react to him, he handles himself well and that is his gift.

“Guys respect Jake, and I think the guys know all he cares about is winning.”

He had to display that first in his comeback from surgery on his non-throwing shoulder, and Locker used that as a chance to prove how serious he was.

“Physically he is in the best shape of his life. The dude is a beast,” wide receiver Marc Mariani said. “As a quarterback, he wins every sprint in conditioning drills. He is just an animal.

“And he is a natural-born leader. Jake is a guy people look at as an example, and that is what you look for in your leader, your quarterback.”

For all the moves the Titans have made this offseason, they won’t matter that much if Locker reverts to last year’s form. If he’s truly the kind of quarterback you can build around, they’ll have a chance.

AP

With offseason workouts completed for most teams, the calendar has reached the point at which players have free time — and coaches and General Managers spend most of their free time worrying about getting a phone call regarding a player who has found trouble.

At some point in the past day or so, Patriots coach Bill Belichick received one of those calls.  But instead of hearing about the latest run-of-the-mill off-field entanglement, Belichick was told that tight end Aaron Hernandez faces police questioning after a body of an “associate” was found in the vicinity of a rental car connected to Hernandez.

All reports continue to indicate that Hernandez is not a suspect.  Still, Hernandez has consulted with a lawyer, per SI.com.  According to ABC, Hernandez received at his North Attleboro home on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m. a hand-delivered package from the “prominent law firm Ropes and Gray,” an international corporate firm with 11 offices worldwide.

Police reportedly spent hours inside Hernandez’s residence on Tuesday, ultimately searching the structure and emerging with a box.

Two men who tried to leave during the search reportedly were detained.  The car in which they planned to leave also was searched.

Hernandez’s agents have declined comment.  The Patriots issued the standard perfunctory comment, acknowledging the reports but declining to address the situation in deference to the investigation.

It’s unclear whether and to what extent Hernandez has been questioned by police.  ABC has reported that he was initially uncooperative, which implies that at some point he has decided to cooperate.  (The Boston Herald disputes the ABC report, using the dismissive “Web reports” label.)

Many possible explanations exist.  It seems implausible that Hernandez had any role in the killing of the “associate,” given the presence of the rental car tied to Hernandez in the vicinity of the body.  At a minimum, the car would have been removed.

Also, there was no apparent effort to conceal the body, which was found by a jogger in an industrial park roughly a mile from Hernandez’s home on Monday.

AP

Cardinals linebacker Daryl Washington is due in court in early July for the next proceedings related to assault charges brought against him following a May arrest for allegedly grabbing his girlfriend by the throat and throwing her to the floor.

Should that case reach a conclusion before the start of the 2013 season, Washington could face discipline from the league under the Personal Conduct Policy and that might extend his early season absence beyond the four-game suspension Washington will serve for violating the league’s substance-abuse policy. It’s the kind of baggage that makes it hard to feel too secure about what Washington will bring to the team in 2013, something coach Bruce Arians acknowledged during an appearance on SiriusXM NFL Radio with Alex Marvez and Bill Polian.

“Well, it’s all up to him. He’s had double incidents and, as an organization, that throws a red flag up,” Arians said. “But I think Daryl is a very bright young man who understands the mistakes he’s made and he’s walking a very thin line in the league right now. Super talented, but you have to adhere to the rules.”

The makeup of the Cardinals linebacking corps speaks to their uneasiness about Washington’s status. The Cardinals drafted Kevin Minter in the second round in April after learning of Washington’s suspension and then signed Karlos Dansby in May after Washington’s arrest, giving them two more options at inside linebacker. Those moves came after the additions of free agents Lorenzo Alexander and Jasper Brinkley before any of the bad news about Washington came to light and give the Cardinals enough depth to survive an absence of any length.

That’s not the ideal situation because, as Arians said, Washington’s got an extra level of talent working in his favor. You have to plan for a rainy day, though, and it’s definitely cloudy over Washington.