Former Colts General Manager Bill Polian has taken some shots at his old team in the wake of today’s news that Andrew Luck is done for the season with a lingering shoulder injury.
Polian said today on ESPN that the Colts’ staff has gone about building the team the wrong way, trying to build a running team and a running offensive line when they should have made protecting Luck their primary priority.
“This new staff came in and said, ‘We’re going to be the toughest guys on the block. We’re going to get big road graders, run, stop the run.’ In Indianapolis? With Andrew Luck? In a division where you play 10 games in perfect weather every year? The team you have to beat is Tom Brady and the New England Patriots? And you want to come in and play like you’re playing in the AFC North? That contributed to it because you didn’t have a pass protecting line,” Polian said.
Polian said that when he was building the Colts’ roster, he made sure he had a good pass-blocking offensive line in front of Peyton Manning, and that the new Colts regime failed to follow that lead.
“That wasn’t the case when Andrew first came in there and that contributed to this,” Polian said.
Polian’s comments may be self-serving because he wants to paint himself as better than the people who came into the Colts’ front office after Polian was fired. But that doesn’t mean he’s wrong. The Colts haven’t done a good enough job putting a team around Luck.
