METAIRIE, La. -- Firing the team orthopedists was a jarring and probably necessary move by coach Sean Payton after an embarrassing turn of events at New Orleans Saints camp this week.

But Payton and the altered medical staff will have to do even more damage control to ensure they don't lose the trust of the locker room after cornerback Delvin Breaux's misdiagnosis turned into such a mess.

It was a bad look for a lot of folks:

• For team orthopedists Deryk Jones and Misty Suri, who apparently didn't discover Breaux's fractured fibula soon enough and who had done enough to frustrate Payton in the past to make this a last-straw incident.

• For Payton, who had reached the point where he was ready to trade or possibly release Breaux because of that faulty injury diagnosis. This situation wouldn't be nearly so ugly if it hadn't publicly leaked just days earlier that the team thought Breaux was loafing it.

• For Breaux, who had created some mistrust with the coaching staff through some previous injury issues.

I'm sure all three of those things are fairly common in the NFL. But they rarely play out in the public spotlight the way they did this week.

I haven't gotten an indication that the Saints have any sort of mutiny to worry about. It's even possible that players will see the firing of the team doctors as a positive move. As the team's union representative, Thomas Morstead, said Wednesday, Payton's message to the team was "very well received" when he explained what happened and, "I thought he did a great job of basically promising the team that they're gonna have people that are here in every area of the building -- including the medical staff -- that players feel like have their best interests at heart and are competent."

However, I can't imagine that Breaux is too happy with the way things played out. I'm certain that other players won't be happy in the future if coaches question their commitment to returning from injuries if they disagree with the doctors' findings.

I'm even more certain that some past players are incensed over similar situations, including former cornerback Keenan Lewis and former linebacker Chris Chamberlain, who were practically gloating on social media Wednesday. I can think of a handful of other disgruntled former players who likely feel the same way.

Again, I'm sure this type of thing happens in every locker room. As one source told me, "I believe it's common throughout the NFL, but maybe a little more in New Orleans."

Payton himself said Wednesday, "You're not gonna bat a thousand here, but you're just hoping that more often than not, you're getting the right information."

What players need to know is that Payton and other coaches will have their backs if they insist that the doctors' findings don't match what their bodies are telling them.

Last but not least, this week's turn of events is an awful development for the Saints because we now know for certain that Breaux isn't heading into the year as a healthy No. 1 cornerback.

Maybe the coaches felt Breaux deserved to lose that status due to performance. Or maybe young cornerbacks such as first-round draft pick Marshon Lattimore, second-year pros Ken Crawley and De'Vante Harris and third-year pro P.J. Williams were outperforming Breaux in the coaches' eyes.

But any of those scenarios is bad news for a defense that ranked 32nd in the NFL against the pass last season. The Saints really could have used a healthy Breaux to play at the level he did in 2015, when he came from the Canadian Football League and turned into an instant star. He routinely held his own against No. 1 receivers and could have been a Pro Bowler.

I wrote this summer that a healthy Breaux was one of the greatest reasons to be optimistic that the Saints can finally turn their embattled defense around. So much for that idea.

The good news is that the Saints' secondary will probably still be greatly improved from last season, when they lost starters Breaux and Williams to major injuries in Weeks 1 and 2. The Saints have now added Lattimore, rookie safety Marcus Williams and veteran safety Rafael Bush, and they've been happy with the development of guys such as P.J. Williams, Crawley and Harris.

But it's essential that one or more of those guys is ready to step into a major role quickly -- exactly the way Breaux did in 2015.