It was sort of funny this week when after Josh Freeman appeared on the NFL Network with a bandage, a brace, something around the thumb on his throwing hand, Saints coach Sean Payton threw a hissy fit while balancing himself on his crutches and screamed to the NFL that the Bucs were playing games with the team’s mandatory injury report.

Freeman wasn’t on the report until Payton began whining.

Well…

Seems as if Payton got his hand caught in the cookie jar a few times doing the very same thing(s).

As Pat Yasinskas of ESPN points out:

In fact, you could make a case that the Bucs might want to put in a call to the league office because New Orleans right tackle Zach Strief and linebacker Will Herring are not on this week’s injury report. Both were inactive Sunday, although Herring might have been a healthy scratch. But both players had been out with injuries for multiple games.

In fact, the Saints have a notorious past, specifically outrageous was the last time the Bucs visited the Big Easy, as documented by Jeff Duncan of the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

During the New Orleans Saints’ regular-season finale against the visiting Tampa Bay Buccaneers, three key New Orleans players — safety Malcolm Jenkins, tight end Jimmy Graham and running back Chris Ivory — were sidelined with injuries.

Reporters’ inboxes and Twitter accounts were bombarded by fans seeking status updates, yet no official updates were given, even though the league requires teams to do so in a timely manner.

When a Buccaneers player went down later in the half, a reporter requested an update from Tampa Bay’s media relations staff. He was told they would issue a report when the Saints issued theirs.

Later in Duncan’s article, he explains how Payton all but admits he’s one of the worst violators of reporting injuries in the NFL.

If only Joe was confident he wouldn’t be sued, Joe would love to tell the story about, in college, when Joe caught Payton …

Sorry, Joe can’t go there. Not yet anyway.