ESPN's Paul Kuharsky was on 1070 The Fan yesterday talking about how bad the Colts looked in their 36-14 loss to the Chargers Sunday night. In the middle of his discussion with host JMV, the topic turned to Colts president Bill Polian's inability to adequately address two fairly consistent and obvious needs within this team via the draft in recent years; offensive line and defensive tackle.
Kuharsky offered some interesting insight into why Polian hasn't done a good enough job in these areas:
I know Polian is really big on 'value.' And there's no doubt, defensive tackle and offensive tackle are two spots where he said, quite frankly, that where [the Colts] draft in the first round, the prime guys are gone. And you're not going to find a franchise left tackle or, you know, a huge defensive tackle at 28 or 30 or 32. And so, [the Colts] don't go there. Well, that's fine. Don't go there. But, you gotta get there in the second round, and you can't miss on Mike Pollak and Tony Ugoh.
Sheesh. I was calling Ugoh and Pollak busts back in April. Probably even further back than that. Look, despite what some have tried to desperate spin in a well-intentioned but flawed effort to justify their draft selections, Pollak and Ugoh were busted picks. As a result of this, the Colts are hurting along the o-line. An NFL team cannot bust first and second round picks and not have it affect the talent on their roster. Heck, it's so obvious they are busts now even Bob Kravitz called them so on Dan Dakich's radio show yesterday.
But Kuharsky doesn't stop there. He goes further, and even suggests a possible reason as to why Polian has failed to effectively address the two weaknesses that everyone and their grandmother have been screaming about [emphasis mine]:
And I can't imagine that getting one or probably two corps [linemen] is not priority one for this team in the off-season, wherever you have to go to get them. I think that Bill, at times, and we all know he's stubborn, he's heard for so long how he hasn't done enough at defensive tackle or on the offensive line, sometimes you feel he's not addressing it just to prove a point that they can win with what they've got, and he doesn't need to address it.
Wow. If that's true, then Bill Polian is even more childish and spiteful than I realized.
Thankfully, JMV did his job and offered a follow-up question to Kuharsky's somewhat shocking suggestion, asking if, in Kuharsky's opinion, Bill Polian thinks it is more important to prove a point to the media than address obvious team weaknesses. Kuharsky answered frankly:
Yep. I think there's something to that.
Great. Just what we need. A personnel head who makes decisions based on ego and a childish need to, in essence, make the nasty meanies look like poo-poo heads.
Here's to hoping Kuharsky is off base with his sentiment. If he isn't, then we have a toddler in the body of a 66-year-old man running our football team.