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Sean Payton can’t envision Brees not with the Saints in 2012

On Friday night’s edition of NBC SportsTalk on VERSUS, Saints coach Sean Payton joined the show via satellite for an interview.

He said there’s no update as to the contract talks between the team and quarterback Drew Brees. Signed in 2006, Brees’ six-year deal expires after the current season. Though the parties were talking earlier this year, no progress has been made in recent weeks.

But Payton also said he sees no set of circumstances in which Brees won’t be the team’s starting quarterback in 2012. Given that Payton has signed a long-term extension of his own, there’s no reason to doubt him in any way.

The bigger question is the manner in which it will all play out. Regarded as a consummate team player, what will Brees do if/when the Saints apply the franchise tag? Brees would eventually have to choose between signing the one-year tender and staying away from the practice field for all or part of the offseason program, training camp, and preseason. Like other franchise players, he could ultimately show up on the eve of the regular-season opener and collect the full amount of his guaranteed one-year salary.

"A Veteran is someone who, at one point in his life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."