So after the Colts lost Super Bowl XLIV to the Saints, team president Bill Polian pulled a Peyton Manning, and talked about the “problems in protection” that fueled the 14-point loss.
“The offensive line, by our standards, did not have a good game,” Polian said during his weekly radio show in the days after the game. “They were outplayed by the Saints’ defensive line, I thought, pretty decisively.”
During a Friday interview with 1070 The Fan in Indianapolis, new starting tackle Charlie Johnson, while not mentioning Polian, made clear Johnson’s feelings on the matter.
“If you look at our line, we’re not a bunch of high-round draft picks,” Johnson said, via StampedeBlue.com. “We got a couple free agents. Everyone knows about Jeff Saturday, and myself being a sixth-round pick. And Kyle DeVan, a free agent. And I think Ryan Diem is a fourth-round pick. We’re a bunch of guys who’ve had to work to get where we are. So, anytime anything negative is said about us, we take it personally just in the fact that we know how hard we work and we feel like we go out there and we give everything we have for the team and for the game. So, were gonna bounce back.”
Previously, Saturday disagreed with Polian’s remarks, as did Diem. With Ryan Lilja gone, a whopping 75 percent of the returning starters has spoken out against Polian’s criticism.
They’d better knock it off, or someone is gonna get thrown up against a wall.