For those who thought we might hear word on the player discipline for the Saints’ bounty program (and I was one of them) on Friday, think again.

No announcement on discipline is coming Friday, NFL counsel Jeff Pash told NFL.com’s Gregg Rosenthal.

I really don’t know what the holdup has been on this. I thought we would have heard news on player discipline a week or two ago. When we got to this week, I thought it was certain to happen this week. But it hasn’t. It’s safe to assume no announcement will come over the weekend.

With the NFL draft starting Thursday, logic would say the NFL will make the announcement on Monday -- maybe Tuesday at the latest. The draft is the league’s biggest offseason event and the NFL doesn’t like to have anything overshadow it. Also, I’m sure the Saints would like to know what they’re dealing with as far as suspensions because they might want to draft some guys that could fill in gaps.

But the way this thing has dragged on, anything seems possible. It now looks like it’s at least possible the NFL may wait until after the draft to make an announcement.