I find this whole thing is very difficult to figure out because there's so much going on that we can't see.

IF Jerry Jones is whispering in Goodell's ear, and he is the one engineering this "problem" with the language in the contract -- meddling and phoning Goodell up and saying "Roger, I just had my lawyer read this Saints contact over, and we can't let Payton get away with this" -- then that's one thing. This whole mess with the voided contract DID seem to only pop up when Jason Garrett was really struggling - why NOW? Why wasn't this obvious problem rejected by the league last year? It takes them a YEAR to read a contract extension? THAT's what's bothering me.

And if Roger Goodell is also trying to somehow separate Payton and Loomis, because of their rogue "arrogant" ways, well that's another matter entirely. That is what any school teacher would tell you -- if you have two kids in class who are huddled in the back row cutting up, misbehaving, and giving you problems, you split them up. One here, one there. And Goodell is so ham-fisted, stilted, and so dumb with his handling of punishments and discipline, this almost sounds like something he would come up with to split them up. So they don't keep ganging up on him and embarrassing Goodell and "disrespecting the shield," cough cough.

On the other hand, it really does seem like the only talk or chatter about Payton going to Dallas...seems to be coming from Dallas. Or from people with a pro-Dallas or anti-Saints agenda. You have wildly contradictory articles about the situation, coming out on the same day. So something is going on, whether that something is real or not is anybody's guess.

It might be one of those things where people just say something very vocally because they want it to somehow come true. If you repeat it often enough, maybe it will happen!

Which actually happens a lot in these types of coaching speculation games. Look at the Les Miles Arkansas thing, or Boston College. We want Kromer! No, we want Carmichael! It's a done deal! No wait, it's not, they haven't talked at all! That kind of stuff.