Posted by Sabrina B. @gametimegirl
New Orleans Saints coach Sean Payton will file an appeal of his one-year suspension Friday in which he will also ask for the commissioner’s guidance on the suspension’s parameters, a league source told ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter.
Roger Goodell has said Payton has until Monday to appeal and, if he does, he could stay on as coach pending an expedited hearing.
A source in the league office told ESPN’s Rachel Nichols that if Payton appealed, the hearing and ruling would come in “days, not weeks,” and that any notion that Payton could extend his working status through the draft in late April is inaccurate.
Payton has said another advantage to an appeal is that it would give him the opportunity for another face-to-face meeting with Goodell, in order to clarify the terms of his suspension. Goodell said Monday that while Payton definitely cannot “coach from home,” he would not necessarily be banned from all contact with the team.
The NFL informed the Saints after the 2009 season, according to Payton, about its awareness of a pay-for-hits bounty system and that it needed to stop. At one point of the 17-minute, 39-second interview, Payton was asked how the situation got to the point in which he ended up suspended, the Saints would lose two second-round draft choices and two of his assistants also would be suspended.
Payton has several options in finding a temporary replacement. He could reach into his staff and promote offensive coordinator Pete Carmichael Jr., offensive line coach Aaron Kromer, defensive head coach Joe Vitt or defensive coordinator Steve Spagnuolo. Carmichael, according to a source, would prefer to just call plays, and Vitt is suspended for six games. If Spagnuolo is promoted, Payton might have to find a new defensive coordinator.
Payton and general manager Mickey Loomis met with retired coach Bill Parcells on Tuesday before Payton flew back to New Orleans to finish planning for the 2012 season.
“We played golf,” Parcells told the New York Daily News of the trio’s Tuesday meeting. “We really didn’t talk about the job. They told me they would be in touch.”
Parcells, sources have told ESPN’s Chris Mortensen, has discussed possibly coaching the Saints for the coming season.
“If the opportunity presents itself, I’ll think it over and clearly I’m in some phase of the process without knowing whether it’s going to become a reality,” Parcells told Mortensen by phone on Wednesday. “Sean’s become a dear, dear friend. I’m trying to be a friend.”
WRITTEN BY Information from ESPN reporter Rachel Nichols, ESPN NFL Insider Adam Schefter and The Associated Press was used in this report & FULL STORY HERE
