It’s almost August and the smell of pigskin is in the air as teams hit training camps throughout football nation.

(Yeah, I just wrote that.)

While NFL news has focused on players getting out of prison, mostly avoiding prison, or heading to prison, one player is generating some delayed attention for just visiting a very well known prison.

Earlier this summer, New Orleans Saints quarterback Drew Brees took a USO-sponsored trip to Guantanamo. His reaction? Different from President Obama’s. Here are a few examples.

I can say this after that experience – the worst thing we can do is shut that baby down, for a lot of reasons. But I think there’s a big misconception as to how we are treating those prisoners; those detainees over there. They are being treated probably ten times better than any prisoner in a U.S. prison. They’re on a 6500 calorie a day diet whereas a normal U.S. prisoner is on a 2,000 calorie a day diet. I think the international media – there’s just been so much scrutiny over the way that we’re treating these guys, it’s almost like we’re going overboard to treat them so well….

[I]t was interesting because at one point, we were walking from one detention center to another and some of the prisoners saw us. And they started yelling torture! Torture! We teach them English by the way. But they assume since we’re in civilian clothes that we were members of the media so they started yelling torture, torture. So you know, anything that they can do to show a poor light on the U.S. military, they’re going to do it. Because it seems like they’re being treated very, very well over there.

Detractors will point out that Brees is favorably disposed toward the military’s point of view because the military hosted him. But if the detainees have advocates around the world pillorying the US military, why can’t the military have an advocate speaking the truth as he sees it?

Click here for more transcript and the audio.