QB Carousel: Dwight Freeney, Former Colts Defensive End

Step right up here!

Don't be shy! The Super Bowl is over, but the NFL quarterback carousel is just beginning. You've got to ask yourself a question.

Do I feel lucky? What does the future hold for all 32 NFL teams at the QB position? Now I'm going to give you an opportunity to spin this wheel right here. Let's spin the wheel and find out which teams we hit today.

The Indianapolis Colts. Let's welcome in a Colts legend, an NFL legend, won a Super Bowl, was a three-time first-team all-pro, made the Pro Bowl seven times, and did lead the NFL in sacks in 2004, had 125.5 career sacks, and that, of course, is our guy in Dwight Frini. Dwight, how you been? I've been good, and what about yourself? I've been good, but I'd be doing better if you made the Hall of Fame. I thought you got screwed. You should have been a first-ballot Hall of Fame. Well, you know what?

Like I've always said, you never know. I've done what I could do on the field, and those people who vote, they vote. You have no control, and you don't know why.

There's been a lot of great players that haven't been first-ballots. Everybody has their hands in the air, like, what's going on? It is what it is. Hopefully it happens when it needs to happen.

And I'm trying not to worry about it too much. And they made DeMarcus Ware wait a year, and then he got in this year. I know I told you that I thought you were a lock to be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. If you don't get in next year, then something fishy is going on.

Well, you know what? I would have thought I would have gone this year. And they had other guys that they wanted in. And every guy who made it this year, they should have been in.

I think they're all great players. So I'm sure this is a tough situation of who goes and what. But, you know, maybe next year for me. Or not.

I don't know, man. There's been guys who've been on that ballot and finalists for three, four straight years and haven't got in. So as long as I'm up there in the conversation and get in eventually, I'll be okay. How did you find out that you didn't get in? Well, what they do is they contact you, and they call you. And for me, that's basically what happened.

I actually reached out to them trying to figure out when we will find out. And the guy told me, hey, I'm just letting you know, not this year. When you get that news, your jaw hits the ground.

And I'm a guy that doesn't like to count his chickens before they're hatched. I don't like to even get excited. But when you become a finalist, you kind of just can't help it.

You know, you're getting so close to something that is such an awesome achievement and it means so much to you and your family, it's hard not to really want it. And so when you hear about it and it didn't happen, it is kind of crushing for a little bit. But it is what it is, man.

You know, you're just going to have to keep moving on and you can't control it, and that's all I can think about. And your numbers are undisputable. You obviously are a Hall of Famer. People associate you with NFL greatness. It's just a bizarre spot for you because you can't do anything to add on to your legacy. Your numbers are your numbers. Your career is the way that we remember it. And it's like now it's out of your control. Yeah, and that's the thing. It's completely out of my control. And I always said to everyone, look, I know I left my mark on the game regardless of what has happened this year.

When you watch an NFL football game, you see guys using that spin move. That was because of me. You see different other things from a protection standpoint. Different protections that come into the league weren't there prior to me are now prevalent throughout the league.

There's a lot of other things like that that I know that I changed the game regardless. Now, when that happens, Hall of Fame happens, if it happens, hopefully soon. But I know I can sleep at night knowing that when I turn on that television, I see a lot of what I have left on that game. Dwight Freeney here with us, who absolutely should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. Let me get to your Colts. What's your reaction to the hire on Shane Steichen as the next head football coach?

Yeah, this is really interesting. He wasn't on my radar as a guy that would have been the guy, the head caller, head coach. But you know what? He's had success. I heard a lot of great things about him and what he's done with the Eagles. I think they were number one in so many categories offensively. That was our struggle, to be quite honest with you, in the last three or four years. It's been offensively making sure that we're doing the things that we need to do. Our defense has been pretty solid over the last three or four years.

Middle of the pack, upper middle, and sometimes in the top ten. So I don't think much change needed to happen there. But bringing an offensive mind like him, I think he can help. Did you guys have any crossover with the Chargers? No, no crossover. Man, I was already going.

I was going out of the door. Gotcha. Have you heard anything from people that were in that organization about him?

I know it's several years ago. Yeah, I mean everyone has high praises about the guy. I honestly think that him knowing how to work with young quarterbacks, this draft coming up, we probably will draft a young quarterback. I think that's going to help having a guy who's worked with young guys before in the past and gotten success. And so when you have a draft right here, we're sitting at number four, who knows if we're going to trade up. Or if we don't even trade up, we can still figure it out and get a guy who's a young quarterback. I think we have the right guy and head coach to really build around him and get him in the right mind frame to do the things that he needs to do this year.

Do you have a preference? Like if they can move up to the number one overall pick, do you like Bryce Young better, C.J. Stroud, or is it someone else?

You know what? It's always hard, man. It's always hard to call it with these college quarterbacks. Just think about how many Heisman winners or guys who went number one and didn't do much in the NFL.

It's really about the system that you go into. If you go into a good system with good support, then the quarterback, whoever you pick, they're going to be highly skilled, obviously, when you pick them the first round, first few picks. It's all about making sure that there's a great marriage between the offensive scheme and what you do offensively and what's going on in that quarterback's mind so that can link up to where he can feel comfortable in his position. You can see success early so that all of a sudden it doesn't become this rotating door, of offensive coordinators, different schemes, and no one's blocking for the guy what's going on. So if you can get into a good situation, which I think the coach will have, I think whoever it is, I think they'll be okay.

Dwight Freeney here with us. Were you at all disappointed? I know he's a friend of yours, teammate of yours. We talked about the initial surprise when he got the job that Jeff Saturday didn't have that interim tag removed and became the full-time head coach.

Yeah, it was definitely disappointing, but I get it. It's what it is. You go out there and he took advantage of a great opportunity. He's always wanted to be a head coach, which I didn't even know. But I guess that's when I learned over the last couple months there that Jeff always wanted to have that type of position. He had to take it. And I don't think it hurts him that he didn't get the job.

I think it is what it is. He didn't expect to have the job, and then he got the job. And now, you know what, wherever his life goes from there, he has something on his resume that no other guy has with his type of experience, the head coach of an NFL football team, without any NFL experience as a head coach.

For him, I think whatever he decides to do, I think it's just going to boost him a little bit. I know the popular thought right now is to go draft a quarterback for the Colts or maybe move up to get that quarterback as well. Would you entertain the idea of them maybe going a different way and drafting a defensive player or maybe someone else on the offensive side of the ball and going out there and signing Derek Carr, who's available right now? I'm actually a fan of Derek Carr. I think he has the ability to make every throw. I think for him it's about, like any quarterback really, it's the system that you've got to put him in to get him comfortable to do the things that he really wants to do.

And I think that's the biggest thing. I think Derek Carr is a great player, but I don't know if they're going to pass up this opportunity to get one of these young studs. If you look at the draft, you've got to figure out, hey, what else is out there that they would prefer to pick up that would help them? I know we need help at wide receiver 100 percent now. Is there a guy in the draft in the top five or ten that should be that guy in the NFL as a receiver?

I don't know. I haven't been following that portion of it that closely, but if you don't take a quarterback, I would think you'd take a receiver or something like that. Our defense has been solid. I don't think you need anybody there, and you can kind of fill up the spaces of whoever else is available in the draft later on or free agency. But you need to make an impact at four or trade it up, and that needs to probably be a receiver or a quarterback in my mind. You knew how to just take advantage of offensive lines, so you have it from the guy that's attacking the quarterback's angle. I was stunned this year, and I know health played a factor into it as well, but the Colts, we've always kind of associated them with great offensive line play the last few years. Just how bad that offensive line was. Yeah, I think the offensive line, quite frankly, cost the Colts the year that they wanted this year for many reasons.

Let's call it injury. Injuries, they had to switch guys from left tackle to right tackle to guard. Guys were out of position all year.

Maybe it was the system and scheme. Maybe they were trying to hold onto the ball a little bit too long. But when you have a quarterback like Matt Ryan in the pocket, he's an older guy. He wants to get rid of the ball. He doesn't want to get hit.

You've got to protect him. If you don't protect him, he doesn't have the mobility to leave the pocket and scramble for 10 to 15 yards. You're talking about a guy who's an older guy who doesn't want to get hit and an offensive line who is nonexistent. No one could have been a quarterback, really, I think, unless he brought Michael Vick out of retirement or something like that, where he doesn't need an offensive line.

He just runs for 34 yards. Or Lamar Jackson or something. But I just believe that offensive line has to also be something that needs to be fixed.

That's on that offensive side of the ball. You need a quarterback, you need a receiver, and you need an offensive tackle or something like that. The only reason why I didn't say offensive tackle to be drafted up high is because usually offensive tackles take about three to four years to become good. It's going to take three to four years for an offensive tackle to be a really solid player.

It just takes that amount of time. You may find something that you need in a free agency from an offensive tackle standpoint. So, yes, they need to fix that offensive line because they can't go. They have one of the best running backs in the league. They can't run the ball with an offensive line.

So that's one of the major issues that we need to fix. Maybe they'll trade for Lamar Jackson this offseason. You know what? Yeah, maybe they will. And if they get them, I promise you that head coach, he knows how to deal with running. You know how to work with running quarterbacks now.

He understands how to dial that thing up. But I don't know if that's going to be in the future. But, hey, you never know, man.

You never know. Well, Dwight Freeney, you should be in the Pro Football Hall of Fame. I'm really annoyed you didn't get in on the first ballot. So if the voters don't punch you in next year, I think at the Super Bowl stay an extra day and then try to beat them up. Oh, Lord. I'll let you guys handle that. Very classy. There he is, Dwight Freeney.