I’m furrowing my brow in a vain attempt to comprehend the following situation: Weekend #1 of Saints Camp 2007 is in the books, and nary a discouraging word have I heard coming from Jackson.

Oh sure, Meachem and Pittman aren’t setting the world on fire. Hollis Thomas is a little overweight (nah, really??) The backup QBs aren’t exactly making a run at Drew Brees’ job. But those things aren’t what I’d call discouraging. Those are things that smart people would have expected all along would be the case.

Only jerks expect rookies to hit the ground looking like all-pros, and fail to understand that big fat guys usually don’t run very fast in 100 degree heat and 97% humidity. And while we here at moosedenied.com are jerks, we’re not that kind of jerk. We’re the kind of jerks your mom thinks are nice boys. Really nice.

When the biggest distraction coming out of camp is the occasional tubetop wandering the sidelines, you know things are going great.

Of course, perhaps the bigger distraction was the jackass who apparently thought it would be big fun to take a morning out of his God-only-knows-how-miserable life and head over to Millsaps for the express purpose of heckling various players as they worked. If that guy happens to be reading this, I’d like to take the opportunity to remind him that suicide is always an option.

But as far as the stuff that actually matters, how can you not love what seems to be going on in Jackson?  Mickey Loomis and Sean Payton continue to shit gold, and everything’s coming up Milhouse. Even the first injury scare turns out to reportedly be fairly minor, as Rob Ninkovich apparently only has a ligament strain.

How cool is Sean Payton, by the way? Somebody asked him about the Hall of Fame Game the other day, and about having that extra preseason game to contend with. Instead of bitching and moaning like the last coach would have done, Payton talked about how they’re going to take the opportunity to connect with the history of the league and how fortunate they are to be in the league.

This guy just gets it. And what’s striking is that you can tell that Payton believes what he says, and has legitimate reasons to believe it. You always got the impression from Haslett that he was just blowing sunshine up your ass. Worse yet, he was probably blowing sunshine up his own ass. You don’t get that vibe from Payton. Payton sees things as they are, where Haslett saw things as he wished they were.

It amazes me when I think back to Payton’s press conference after interviewing for the head coaching job. I was absolutely sure the guy was in way over his head. I’d have bought his plane ticket out of town myself.

I’m an idiot.

Is it any wonder that the sailing these days is as smooth as the game Hollis Thomas runs on the ladies at the club?

It’s because the people in charge are competent. All of ‘em. Finally. By all accounts, there are at least a couple of future head coaches working for Sean Payton right now. Russ Ball is apparently going to be a GM somewhere eventually. Loomis and Payton evidently have a damn fine working relationship, and are working together, rather than constantly battling each other. There don’t seem to be any assholes lurking about and screwing it all up.

Nobody’s punching teammates in the face, menacing people on the fairway with a 9 iron, beating people about the head with a sock full of nickels, stealing money from teammates’ lockers, impregnating cheerleaders, fucking teammates’ wives, and so on.

It’s all business, baby. There will be time for all that other stuff later.