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After a season as Saints interim head coach, Joe Vitt enjoys being just an assistant again

After extenuating circumstances turned him into a mere football coach last season, grizzled defensive assistant Joe Vitt finally is back to coaching football again for the New Orleans Saints.

There’s a huge difference in the two.

Saints defensive line coach Bill Johnson explains.

“You cut Joe Vitt up, all you’re going to find is a 1,000 little football coaches coming out,’’ Johnson said between minicamp practices Tuesday. “He loves to teach, He loves to motivate and inspire. He’s not clerical.

“He did a great job with all those things last season. But when you cut him up, he loves to be on the grass, he loves to be in the classroom, he loves to be with his players. Joe Vitt is a classic football coach, a real classic.’’

Truth be told, Vitt did not really coach a down of defensive football last season, sandwiching a season-opening six-game suspension for his role in the bounty scandal around his preseason and in-season duties as interim head coach in the absence of coach Sean Payton.

Those who know Vitt best say he is finished talking about last season, that he no longer wants to be the team’s spin doctor, that he crammed a lifetime of addressing the media into nine forgettable months as “the voice’’ for a troubled organization.

Vitt declined to be interviewed for this story for all the aforementioned reasons.

“After you get back all the people we missed last year, it feels like we were walking one-legged last year,’’ Johnson said. “It was like we were missing pieces to a 1,000-piece puzzle last season. Football is football, but there’s more to it than X’s and O’s. It’s energy, it’s motivation, it’s a culture. It’s all those things that we missed without our good people doing what they do best.’’

Read more: Saints

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Everyone is entitled to be stupid, but some abuse the privilege.

All little common sense goes a long way.