After Bill Polian's meltdown on the radio following the Colts now-infamous handling of the Week Sixteen game against the New York Jets in 2009, the Colts have blocked the call-in radio program named 'The Bill Polian Show' from Internet listeners. This show features Colts vice chairman Bill Polian, and it allows regular Colts fans to call-in and ask him questions which he, frequently, gets annoyed answering. It is the only Colts content that is not streamed live on the net. Thus, because Colts fans outside the Indianapolis area cannot listen in on the show, we provide highlights from the program, which often include Bill Polian saying things he later claims he did not say. However, since the Colts and Mr. Polian do not provide fans or media with recordings of the show, you'll just have to take our word that what we write below is indeed what Mr. Polian actually said. Hope you enjoy.
Stampede Blue live-tweets the highlights while the show is happening.You can follow Stampede Blue on Twitter at @stampedeblue.
Much like the Colts 0-4 start to the 2011 NFL season, Week 4 of The Bill Polian Show started out rocky. There was no intro, no music, no 'Good evening and welcome to the...' It started with host Bob Lamey, mid-sentence, talking with Colts vice chairman Bill Polian about Eric Foster's well-documented injury on Monday Night Football.
From there, the show was pretty much 'blah.' Ole Bill doesn't really answer questions anymore, but instead talks around the question before pontificating on subjects that seem to barely relate.
Despite this, we soldier on. Here's our recap of last night's Bill Polian Show:
- Polian said he experienced a similar injury in college that Foster sustained in Tampa. Said he can recover fully. Foster will be back in Indy sometime Thursday. He is still in Tampa recovering from surgery.
- Polian offered no details on the health of Anthony Castonzo and Ben Ijalana. Not long after Polian said this, @indystar tweeted that Ijalana was done for 2011 with an ACL injury.
- Polian said Iajalan 'grew up before our eyes' playing LT in place of the injured Castonzo.
- Yes, it's true: Bill Polian quoted Jack Del Rio, and it was not do so ironically. The Colts must 'Keep chopping wood,' he said.
- Basically, while rambling for a while about why things are so bad now, Polian basically said that after 8 years of being awesome and 'lucky,' now the Colts suck. However, despite sucking, 'We're doing a lot of things very well.'
- Polian praised the efforts Monday night of Tyler Brayton and Jamaal Anderson.
- Polian: 'Lots of voices outside the building,' are telling Colts players they suck. Ignore them, says Bill.
- Polian once again compared Drake Nevis to Booger McFarland. Said he saw Booger before Tampa Bay game.
- Off message from what Jim Caldwell stuck to early on Tuesday, Polian said he does not expect a change at QB, and that Curtis Painter will remain the starter.
- A caller asked Polian why the Colts corners played 5-10 yards off the Tampa Bay WRs. Polian didn't answer the question, but instead decided to give a detailed breakdown of how the 'Cover-2' scheme works.
- A caller asked Polian why the Colts don't use more 'Wildcat' formations. Yeah, dumb question. The answer seems pretty obvious.
- A caller asked Polian about the possibility of changing the IR rules and allowing teams to remove players off IR during the season, similar to baseball's '15-day disabled list.' Polian answered by saying the idea has been discussed in the Competition Committee, and that the reason the NFL no longer allows teams to take players off IR in-season is because, in the old days, teams used to 'stash' good players on IR by inventing bogus injuries.
- A caller asked about Dwight Freeney always seeming to be held. Polian answered that he is not worried about off holding. More concerned with what is happening down field with WRs.
- A caller asked why the Colts QBs keep getting hurt. Polian answered by basically saying the o-line sucks.
- Polian referred to Mike Pollak as a future 'anchor' of this offensive line.
- Polian closed show by speaking very well of Chiefs QB Matt Cassel in one breath, and in the next essentially say he's inconsistent.
As always, thanks for reading our little write-ups. Kind of a boring show this week. Most people are getting a sense that the callers are heavily screened these days. We might test that in the coming weeks, asking readers to call-in and ask questions that are actually relevant.