The nearly year-long nightmare of Bountygate is now officially over! The NFL's decision Tuesday to reinstate Saints coach Sean Payton, a week after a federal judge tossed out Jonathan Vilma's defamation suit against Commissioner Roger Goodell, effectively puts an end to the most vexing year in franchise history.

I have always liked statistics as a component of sports, as opposed to statistics as a subject in school. Case in point, in order to achieve my masters degree many years ago, I completed ten courses. I had nine A's and one C. The stinker course? Statistics. Of course, that was the day before pocket calculators when high computing was a gizmo called a slide rule, which looked like a ruler carried on your belt like a cane knife. All the architectural majors carried them, and not one of them could have figured out an earned run average to save his life.

     When Sean Payton's one-year suspension ends, he might find the cupboard bare when he returns to his Saints office. Certainly not of players. Drew Brees will end his career in New Orleans, and most of the core Saint players are under contract for the foreseeable future. No, Payton might find that his absence led to a mass audition of his assistants to run their own shops. And there would be merit to that logic.

     Joe Vitt, Aaron Kromer, Steve Spagnuolo and Pete Carmichael Jr. all could be candidates for head coaching jobs about the time Payton returns to reclaim his locker. You earn your bones when the bullets start flying, and all four aforementioned assistants will soon be dodging and ducking while rallying their own troops to take out the enemy. Bullets have never flown so frequently around the Saints organization as they have during the past offseason. Bountygate, Brees holdout, wild stories of bugging devices, the commissioner suspensions, players suing the commissioner and other lawsuits being prepared.

It might not be as exciting as the “high-scoring” match Thursday night between the pass-happy New Orleans Saints and the New England Patriots, but today could be a pivotal point in the Saints-Jonathan Vilma-NFL-Goodell_NFLPA bountygate legal mess.

Judge Ginger Berrigan is hearing the bounty suspension matter to determine if Vilma’s case should go forward or end with the NFL’s own penalty ruling.  Regardless of Friday's ruling, this thing is headed to a federal appeals court.