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New Orleans Saints Head Coach Sean Payton
OTA Media Availability
Thursday, May 29, 2014

Opening Statement: “Before go through practice I want to note that Jairus Byrd today is having a surgical procedure on his back for a disc. It has been asymptomatic but it was something that we wanted to do and he as well to alleviate or avoid any issues in the fall. He will be back in a week, so for this next week he won’t be at these OTAs. He will be going through basically his rehab and it is something that didn’t need to be done but I think he and ourselves felt like it would be something that would prevent any issues in the fall. He is the one guy that I will hit on injury-wise. The rest of those guys I won’t go through during these OTAs.”

When did you notice or what brought it to your attention with Jairus Byrd?

“Probably during the last month during the weightlifting, and it’s something that he has dealt with before. This is something after the doctors looked at it and the specialist out in L.A. looked at it, (Dr.) Watson, he felt this was one scenario that would take care of it rather than try to (live with it through treatment and rehab…he wasn’t having any pain. It was asymptomatic and yet it was something we wanted to handle, especially with his position.”

Would he had the surgery during the season?

“If it was during the season, you wouldn’t go through the procedure, you would treat it symptomatically then. If it was sore, you would treat it. We are just deciding to do it now.”

Do you think he will practice during this mini-camp/OTAs?

“I don’t know that he will. Our guess will be that we will be real cautious and probably get him back here and he will start up training camp with no problem.”

Can you talk about how nice it is to see Kenny Vaccaro out there moving well?

“We’ve got a lot of those guys back. There are a handful of guys that are still kind of working through an injury and going through rehab, but overall it has been pretty smooth.”

Do you ever go back to the past year’s rosters and some of the same guys and their improvement?

“The main purpose here in the offseason is the weight room and their conditioning. The drills we are going through hopefully allow them mentally to play as fast as they can when we put pads on. It is really hard during these OTAs to (evaluate on-field play), you can evaluate an assignment and those types of things but it is hard to draw conclusions. Every year there are guys that maybe go through a certain segment here and when we get into pads they look a little different or play a little differently. It is just the current format of how we practice and right now there is a lot of mental (aspects) of what we are doing and yet the most important part still is the weight training and conditioning. This is a chance to get out and work with them on the calls that we are making, their alignment and hopefully that installation that we do now carries over into training camp.”

Can you talk about what you have seen from Patrick Robinson?

“He is moving around well and there is some rust I’m sure he is working through. His rehab has been real good. He has worked real hard at it and he seems to be moving pretty fluidly. I am sure as he continues to do that and gets more comfortable with football movements, that’ll help, but he has had a good offseason with regards to his injury and how he has approached it.”

Read more: Sean Payton talks about Saints OTAs

Rugby Saint II

We are younger on the defensive side of the ball........which means cheaper. Young and Hungry.

QBREES9

Excitied thats all i can say.