During the NFL lockout players and coaches are not supposed to communicate. New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton apparently feels that rule only applies to communicating with players on his team, because this past weekend he hung out with a couple Dallas Cowboys and one Detroit Lion and even played in a beach football game with them.
Saturday also represented the day New Orleans Saints Coach Sean Payton crossed the proverbial "line in the sand’’ that separates NFL owners and players to play in a pickup game with Dallas Cowboys’ quarterback Tony Romo and tight end Jason Witten and Detroit Lions’ linebacker Bobby Carpenter.
Former Cowboys quarterback Troy Aikman also played in the game, which took place on the beach near Payton's vacation home in Florida. Payton is a former Cowboys assistant, and I guess he decided to get together with the current and former Cowboys to have some fun. I'm sure Saints fans aren't thrilled with him spending time with Cowboys players, but what does the NFL think about all this?
"We are aware of it," NFL spokesman Greg Aiello told PFT by e-mail this morning. "No further comment."
I don't see anything wrong with this, and I doubt the NFL will do anything about it. After all, the NFL isn't even going after the bigger alleged rules violations like where playbooks were supposedly being given out. Mike Florio summed up the situation best in saying, "The league doesn’t seem to be inclined to do anything to police potential violations or enforce the rules in this regard." I guess unless you're allegedly tampering with another team, the NFL doesn't care about rules being broken.