Leinart ready to move on after off-field antics, focus on football

Matt Leinart would like to spend more time on football and less time explaining things away from the field.

But because he put himself in an awkward situation in the offseason, he spent some time doing the latter on Friday, the first day of the Cardinals’ minicamp at their practice facility in Tempe.

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Leinart was photographed in a pool-and-party setting at his home with several young women. The photos were widely circulated on the Internet.

In the aftermath, coach Ken Whisenhunt expressed his disappointment with the situation.

In his first public comments on the matter, Leinart tried both to steer the conversation to football and to acknowledge a mistake.

“The Internet is a bad thing,” he said, jokingly.

He indicated he’s less concerned about public perception and more concerned about his reputation among teammates and coaches.

“I know that they support me 100 percent. ... All the other stuff doesn’t really mean a lot to me. What means a lot to me is this football team and moving forward.”

Leinart, asked about Whisenhunt’s disappointment, indicated he told Whisenhunt he’d “learned a lesson.”

“And you really move on. It’s really something I’ve forgotten about.” Along with moving forward, “You learn about trust in people. There’s a lot of stuff you learn.

“But again, I’m going to keep going and point back to that it’s football time. That’s all I’ve been really focusing on.”

Whisenhunt, after talking with Leinart, said, “He understands the fishbowl he’s living in as a quarterback in the NFL. That’s the way it is.”

He reiterated previous comments that Leinart has been working hard in the offseason to come back from a collarbone injury that has sidelined him since the fifth game of the 2007 season.

“He’s working his rear end off. ... I’ve seen him up here at times when he didn’t have to, including time spent studying videotape of opponents,” Whisenhunt said.

“If you’re asking me about his commitment, just from what I’ve seen in this offseason, I have no doubts about him wanting to be one of the best quarterbacks and working hard at that.”

Leinart said he hasn’t been teased about the situation by teammates, though that could come in time as well.

“You don’t want to mess with it right off the bat,” receiver Anquan Boldin said. “It still might be a sensitive subject.

“You let it blow over a little bit, then you hit him with it.”

EXTRA POINT: The Cardinals’ minicamp runs through the weekend, with two workouts today and another Sunday. Today’s early workout, from 10:45 a.m. to 12:15 p.m., is the only one open to the public.