Can you say needless distraction? Saints ban media member

Veteran NFL writer Brian Allee-Walsh, the former Saints beat reporter for the Times-Picayune and now a writer for NewOrleans.com, has been banned from this week's Saints practices.

It is a curious move at a time when the Saints can ill afford a distraction of any sort in the days leading up to Super Bowl XLIV. The reasons are not quite clear, although here is a comprehensive story on the subject.

Is it because the Saints don't think he is a properly credentialed reporter because he works for the website? Is it because Allee-Walsh asked Sean Payton whether a toe injury suffered by Jeremy Shockey occurred in a non-football setting? Or because of something Allee-Walsh wrote recently about Reggie Bush? 

Whateverr the the case, this much is clear: a writer has now been injected into the Super Bowl week storyline, which is never good.

The best thing the Saints could have done: ignored the whole thing, not lifted a finger with Allee-Walsh, and avoided having to deal with anything other than football matters in the days leading up to the biggest game in the history of the franchise.