Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -10/6 - Spat Between Cole And Wayne Is Petty | Arthur Jones Is Back & Pagano Steps Out of Character In Presser

Episode Date: October 6, 2016

#Pagano has a moment out of character in his Wednesday presser, Arthur Jones makes his way back into the #Colts locker room and the public spat between Reggie Wayne and Trent Cole takes us all back to high school, but Wayne is dead on just the same. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hey, where are you going, Jim? The elevator's over here. Taking the stairs. But our meeting's up on 8. Yeah, I know. But that's 8 floors up. That's like 8 times... I don't... a lot of stairs. That's the point. I've already lost a few pounds and earned almost $100 in wellness incentives. Whoa, you're getting rewarded for working out? Yeah, I know. I'm just as surprised as you are, Bob.

Fearless is full of surprises. That's the power of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Federal Employee Program. Learn more about our healthy benefits and sign up at fepblue.org slash choose blue by December 11th. You are Locked On Colts, your daily podcast on the Indianapolis Colts, part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back to Locked On Colts. I am your host, Matt Dainley, and we are here on our Thursday show for October 6th. And we've got a little bit to talk about, mostly some high school antics, you know, back and forth from former Colts legend and Reggie Wayne

and current Colts free agent flop, Trent Cole, and a couple other things as well. There's a lot of stuff in the news today, and we've been talking about it for a while now. But a little bit of it is, you know, who's to blame, whether it's Luck or somebody else. Come on, we've already talked about this. There's no real need for us to rehash this. We understand that Andrew Luck is absolutely not the problem, so there's really no reason for us to go all the way back into it and for me to tell you how he's not the problem. If you think that he's a problem, I think it's been said before, you're probably need to watch more football. So with that, I want to thank you all for

the increased traffic again, guys, I just can't tell you how excited I am at the responses from you guys. A lot of you are conversating with me on Twitter through the Locked on Colts Twitter handle, on Facebook as well. And actually the email account has been pretty active too. So that's all great news, and I appreciate all of you getting with me and asking questions or just whatever it is. It's great to talk to you guys, talk to other Colts fans. It's great to hear what you guys are thinking.

And in that, I put a tweet out yesterday that is going to give, for our Friday show, is going to give five fans, five of you, who either you have to like the Facebook page or follow the Twitter account. You've got to share the show. You've got to retweet the one with the hashtag ColtsFanFriday. And what we're going to do is I'm going to choose from all of you who retweet and follow. Then I want you to DM me or message me on Facebook. And what I'm going to have you do is write a real brief description on what your issues are, whether it's good, which probably a lot of it is going to be good or bad, you know, whatever your thoughts are on the Colts currently right now after the first four games in the season. And I'll take the five best and I'll give you guys, I said 90 seconds on, you know,

on Twitter, but it could be up to two minutes. I'm not going to cut you guys off in the middle of a statement or nothing like that. But I will get your information and such, and I'll bring you guys on the show. And we'll have a Colts Fan Friday on Locked on Colts. It'll be great. And we can kind of discuss what your guys' concerns are with the team. I would assume that the majority of them are the same as everybody else's, including myself. But, you know, I love original stuff. So if you've got something that a lot of people aren't talking about, tweet that. That's a good way to get yourself on the show. Additionally, go out to iTunes or Stitcher or wherever you guys are listening to this right

now and either rate or whatever, thumbs up, or, you know, if it's like iTunes, like I said, rate and review the show, if you could please five-star reviews and a, a small little shout to, to what you guys think about the show. Like I said, a lot of this and 99.9% of it's been favorable. So I can't express enough gratitude for you guys for that. You guys are helping me grow this thing and we're reaching more Colts fans and that's ultimately the plan. So I appreciate, I just wanted to tell you guys that I appreciate that and let's go ahead and move on with our Thursday show. First and foremost, I'll run you guys through the injury report real quick. Darius Butler,

he was limited with a hamstring. I think we knew that, expected that anyways. Denzel Good and Joe Reitz were both limited. They were out there. Like we said, they'd probably be out on Wednesday, and that's good, just to see them get out and move it around with back issues. Backs are not cool. I mean, any of you guys who've had issues with your back, especially lower back, that kind of hampers your entire body. So whether we see them back or not, maybe this week could possibly be up in the

air. But, you know, they're out moving around. They're stretching their bodies and stuff. So that's good for a couple of linemen that we probably need quite a bit. Mathis did not practice due to a rest day. Those are typically his Wednesdays. You know, he gets those off. Frank Gore did not practice for a chest injury. Harrison is, Jonathan Harrison is still out with his, from surgery. So that's to be expected as well. No updates on Moncrief. He didn't practice. And Eric Walden didn't practice, who also has a chest injury.

So we need Eric Walden, don't we guys? I mean, as crazy as it is to sound, or as crazy as it is to say, that we need him for a pass rush. And we've spoken about Trevor Bates getting brought up, and there was a little bit of talk about that today with Chuck Pagano and his press conference. And, you know, he was asked about kind of about that inside linebacker position. And he's, you know, you know how Chuck is, though. I mean, he's not going to be like, oh, this is just bad. and he was asked about that inside linebacker position.

You know how Chuck is, though. He's not going to be like, oh, this is just bad. We're not in good shape. But he was optimistic, and it didn't seem to bother him. He felt like he was doing it for the best of the team. And a lot of people said, well, C.O. Moore had the most tackles at that point on the team, but, man, how many did he miss? How many times is he just, you know, not filling the right gaps and stuff?

I mean, he just wasn't good. So it's okay. I don't mind it, you know. And they end up bringing up Trevor Bates. They did not acquire another inside linebacker. They did for the practice squad, not for the 53. You know, a lot of people thought maybe Nate Irving might get a shot again. I thought about it and I think I spoke about it the other day. It's just, you know, that he didn't

work out for the Colts. And so I don't think between the combination of Chuck Pagano and Ted Monachino that they're going to go back and grab somebody that they'd already released that they just didn't like. So I don't think that's something they're going to do. But he did talk about, you know, DeQuel, obviously, but he seemed to be, Pagano seemed to be high on McNary, Morrison for some reason, and Edwin Jackson, who's kind of been one of the forgotten guys there. I'd like to see him get some more snaps. That'd be good for, not only for him, but he, man, he had a phenomenal camp. And I know he's been getting the special team snaps, but he hasn't gotten a lot at inside linebacker.

And they seem to be assuming that Bates is going to be able to kind of be somewhat of a hybrid guy, be an outside linebacker and inside linebacker in some packages. And they talked about the sub packages and stuff how much they're playing right now and that kind of right up Bates's alley if I mean just as a player Edwin Jackson as well you know they're going to have to obviously keep Morrison off the field in passing situations I don't think there's any way around that I think they're just begging to get scorched if they if they continue to bring him out on third down. Look, you don't want to be a team on offense or defense where the opposing team can easily

dictate what you're going to be doing. But Morrison is such a liability in coverage. They just don't have a choice. It doesn't matter. And the guys that are there, McNary's good enough in run support to where if he's on the field, they're not going to fool anybody. Jackson, I think, and Trevor Bates are equally pretty decent in run support. It's not going to be much of a drop-off in that regard.

The real problem is the coverage, so they need to address that and make sure that they're not worried about tipping their hand at that point. It's just the way it's got to be. Pagano was also asked about that, being that it is such an issue with the team. He kind of talked about also bringing Clayton Gathers down into the box a little bit more on multiple downs. And that also, I think, in some dime packages or some nickel and stuff like that, may open up some opportunities to kind of switch up those inside linebacker guys, maybe freeing them up on the outside and such.

And I'm interested to see who they're giving the blows to, whether it's Mathis or Walden in cases like that. You know, Majic comes in, and he's kind of a – he's pass rush ability. He's got it. But he's also one of the edge-setting guys, you know. So that will be interesting to see kind of how they work their rotation in, just in all the above, all the linebackers, inside and outside. It would be interesting to kind of check that out on Sunday.

And the good part about it is the Colts are playing an awful Bears team. Or like I said yesterday and the day before, the Colts aren't a good team, but the Bears are awful right now. But there's always that factor that the Colts haven't played well against, you know, kind of deplorable backup quarterbacks. It's just, it's weird how, you you know Pagano kind of spoke to the state of the team like their mind frame as well he was kind of asked about you know how he was trying to keep everybody calm and not get frustrated and stuff like that and of course you know Pagano kind of his cookie cutter response is just you just sticking to the process and so on. I don't think anybody expected anything different from him in that regard.

Despite how many directions a certain person could go with an answer to that kind of a question, Pagano's going to stay pretty true to form and answer the majority of these questions, regardless of what the question is, he's going to answer a lot of them the same way. Now he did get a little interesting and I think it was posted on Twitter. Zach Kiefer put something on about it and the direct question was, and I'm going to quote this for obvious purposes, but the question was, do you sense any frustration out of your team considering how close all the games have been? And Pagano's quote here is absolutely, if you didn't give a shit, excuse my French, he says, of course,

and you didn't care and you didn't want to win, then it would be. Halati, dah, everything is okay. He got a little animated on Wednesday with that, and I thought that was interesting because you don't hear a lot, you don't hear that out of Pagano almost ever, you know, any kind of, even a slight swear word like that. You just don't hear that from him. That's just not his style. And that's not where he goes a lot of the time. So you can tell that it's an issue. Not only is the coaching staff feeling it, but the players are feeling it too. This could be one of those points in the season where we look back at around week 10 or week 12 and go, not so much did the players that they let go and brought up

have a significant impact on the difference in the outlook of the team, but the fact that they were all feeling the pressure and wanted a change may have contributed. So it'd be interesting to see where they go from here. Like we spoke about yesterday, between now and their bye, they could have a significantly different record and look like a completely different team on paper. So it'll be interesting to see how they kind of bounce back from some less than ideal games. Another interesting thing was that Pagano was directly asked about Reggie Wayne's comments on NFL Network that he kind of made, kind of talking about the front office and some

of the moves that they've made. And, you know, he did mention Trent Cole, which we'll get to here in a moment. And Pagano was asked about it, and if he saw it, and Pagano said he didn't see it. And Pagano does have this strange quality about him that when he answers a question, though, he just seems like the answer should be very obvious to everybody. And ultimately, in the end, it is.

He kind of just said, no, it's there. It's going to be there, ultimately in the end it is, you know, he kind of just said, no, it's there. It's going to be there. Um, especially with the record, you know, different if you're four, no, people don't talk like this. If you're one in three, what else are you going to talk about? And guys like, come on guys, keep it real. You know, I just thought that was funny to see that, uh, that was his response. Like, of course, people are going to be talking. It doesn't matter if it's a former teammate or, you know, me on here.

You know, people are going to be talking about it because that's the issue. And I thought that was cool of him just in general, not that he's excited to say it. But it was, you know, it is what he – and it's like he says and everybody says. It is what it is right now. You can't do anything about the past four weeks. And they've got a lot to do to change the future and how the results of these games turn out. But as far as anything before them, there's no point in pouting about it, especially when you're in that locker room. You've got to keep your eyes forward and you can't be looking in the rearview mirror and such.

So Andrew Luck did practice. He's no longer on the injury report, as you may have noticed. And they did talk to Trevor Bates directly as well, and he seemed pretty excited, very happy to, you know, he feels like he's had the group that he's working with has helped him out to get him ready for this. He's excited to be there. He feels that he has a sense of urgency.

And, you know, he's still he's out there practicing with these guys every day. Just because he's not on the 53-man roster doesn't mean he's not out there. He's on the scout squad, you know, or was. And so, you know, he wasn't getting his reps at linebacker for the most part, but occasionally he'd go in and play like a weird offensive position. And so now he's excited to be actually moving in and out of the rotation where he's supposed to be playing. So I'm excited to see him. I really am. I don't know how good he'll be, but you know, he's there. They drafted him. They've got to see what he's made of,

especially when everybody else has been so, so weak at the position that they've got to do something to, to get things turned around. So it'll be interesting to see how that turns out this Sunday. Maybe he won't get any snaps at either linebacker position, but he's there. They've got the option. You know, he'll get a couple. I would assume, and this is just a complete and total assumption at this point, I would assume you don't see more than two or three snaps from him, and that's, you know, probably actually a high ball for this week.

He's going to need a week or two to actually get his feel with the team going in and out of the substitutions in practice. He's going to have to learn more. I'm sure he's been in his playbook, but he's really going to have – not only is he going to have to know the playbook, he's going to have to execute in practice in order to get himself on the field. So naturally he's going to be trying to do that. And it could take up to two weeks. So it could be for the week six game that we

actually see him get, you know, eight to 10 snaps and keep this in mind, Morrison and a lot of those other guys out the outside linebackers are actually getting some, you know, snaps, I guess, but Morrison's like 15 to 18 snaps a game. So that probably will change this week uh with uh seo more being being cut but just don't expect a whole bunch you know unless he's just blowing people away in practice which uh i think that if he was going to blow people away in that uh aspect it would have happened by now more likely but you never know once guys get on the field, sometimes they change. There's definitely an attribute to certain players that they are gamers. And I know when I played football, there was plenty of them. You couldn't get them to do anything in practice,

but you get them in between the lines when the lights are on, and all of a sudden they're just a different guy at the position. So we'll have to see. I'm excited for it. And, you know, this weekend would be a great time for the Colts to just blow up. And, you know, they're not going to get any credit for it if they tear up the Bears anyways. But they need that confidence, I think, going into the rest of the season, especially if we get back into the AFC South games.

And then they've got, like we said the other day, some really tough games coming up right before the uh the bye so uh could be pretty intense so let's kind of dig into the reggie wayne and trent cole issue a slight back and forth uh ultimately what reggie was saying was that he you know doesn't blame andrew luck for the uh the lack of success that the Colts are having, more or less, nor should anybody else. He basically says that they should blame the front office. And then he kind of went through and talked about some guys who were drafted, specifically Bjorn Werner and some of those guys, and there were busts.

And some free agent acquisitions. They were garbage. They didn't do anything. And then he also brought up Trent Cole, who taught airmen and stuff, and just how they didn't – Trent Cole's been here, hasn't done much of anything in the past year and a half, or if that, depending on how much you want to consider his health and how long he's been here.

But Trent Cole hasn't done anything. And Reggie, you know, I'm surprised that Reggie's this open about it, that he actually said it. I don't doubt that he thinks it. You know, I don't doubt that a lot of the people think this. I'm a little surprised that he said it, though. Reggie's always been kind of the quiet guy, you know. But he did say it

and it wasn't wrong. He was definitely right. Bob Kravitz wrote a piece about it today as well. And, um, more or less, he just called out Trent Cole for, you know, being one of the free agent screw ups and swings and misses. And Cole went back on his Facebook. And in fact, he even, uh, shared it a couple of different times and different times and wrote must read with several exclamation points after it as if everybody should have to read what he wrote. And his blanket response was that he doesn't respond to media, but I can't stand people who think they know what's going on like he's in the building amongst us. So don't use my name ever again because if you do these things, you will take back them words of time I was playing. I stay in my lane because I'm here for my team.

This goes for everybody and certainly Reggie Wayne. Reggie, I have all the respect for you. You will always be a cult for life. I know you are mad about what you are seeing, but this is not the way to talk about the team who gave you opportunity. A couple things here. It doesn't matter, first of all, who gave him opportunity. He was there for how many years?

Reggie, not only a legend because he was good, he's a legend because he was constantly available until obviously his later years. But Trent Cole's fighting a losing battle here. This is pointless for, you know, it was kind of silly. Like I said, I didn't expect Reggie to speak up, but Trent to even poke back at what Reggie said is stupid because, I mean, take this sentence, for example,

I can't stand people who think they know what's going on like he's in the building amongst us he was in the building a couple years ago right not a lot's changed since then up up front uh with the head coach you know so is he saying that the coaches are telling him not to be good like you guys don't know what's going on. They're telling me not to sack people. You know, I don't understand this. It's just I don't really understand the process as if, you know, he was talking to somebody like myself or someone else who writes pieces locally

or something like that to where you guys don't understand what it's like to be in this locker room. You don't know what's going on in here. Reggie was an NFL player for years, and he's a legend in Indianapolis. Get over yourself, Trent Cole. Sorry, pal. You lose. There's just no way around it.

So I kind of went that backwards. I spoke about the press part of it before the back and forth between these two. But here's the bottom line when it comes down to it. And think this. People have also been saying, well, Trent alluded to it, about the team that gave him the opportunity. And I even saw in Bob Kravitz's piece today that he said something about that Reggie doesn't think very highly of Grigson,

at least because he was the one that let him go when he did, or that didn't re-sign him, we'll put it that way, because that's actually what it was. He didn't cut him. Dan Dockage, pay attention, pal. The bottom line is that, yes, Grigson's the guy that's going to pull the trigger. He's the guy that's going to be the one talking to Reggie about it when they go into those discussions. But you know who's sitting right next to him is Ursae. And a guy

like Reggie, who's been in Indianapolis and has been the cult and the model citizen and football player for this organization for as many years as he has, nothing happens in that type of a situation without Ursae's complete and total agreement. So let's get that straight. First of all, Ursae, I don't think Ursae delves a whole lot into draft or anything. I think he delegates out to those guys pretty well. Ursae's an owner. He doesn't pretend to be a GM, you know, in the case, I mean, he drafted Andrew Luck, but that was – look, you've got the second round and everything after, Ryan, in your first year with us. You're not – it's Andrew Luck, period.

But outside of that, there's nothing – I'm not saying that all moves go through Ursa. Like he has to sign off on them before they go. It's like, hey, boss, can I do this? But in this case, when you're going to either decide to re-sign or not re-sign a guy like Reggie Wayne, not only is that coming across Ursae's desk, that's a meeting between Grigson and Ursae and Pagano and all of that before any sort of a decision is made to what they're going to do. So let's not pretend that that's all on Grigson's shoulders at the same time.

But also let's not pretend that Reggie isn't smart enough to understand that he knew that was coming. Reggie knows how he played in his last couple years in the league. So Reggie's not stupid, and he's certainly not thin-skinned and a fickle guy. Some people are kind of assuming otherwise. I don't think that he's got any burnt bridges necessarily between himself and Grigson. I just think that he understood. I don't know why there would be, you know, but I don't talk to Reggie, so I can't really say on that. I guess I'm doing a large amount of assumption with that, but I think that would

make sense if you put yourself in that position or anybody else for that matter. Another guy who's back with the Colts now is Arthur Jones. So we've spoken about this briefly in the past couple days. But he's coming back, and he's got a lot to prove. And they talked to him about that as well today. He does have a lot to prove, though. He's got to prove that he can stay healthy. He's got to prove that he can be solid at his position. He's got to be an asset to this team at his position. He's got to be an asset

to this team. Like I said, you know, I talked to a couple people on Twitter today. They were asking if, you know, maybe they would kind of bypass him since he's been back. And like I said, I think that's happened in the past. Just can't remember if it was from an IR designation or whether it was somebody coming back from suspension. But, you know, they owe him over $5 million. They're not going to ditch him, you know. And so that's obvious at the moment at least. But he has a lot to prove. You know, if he doesn't prove it the last 12 games of the season,

then he won't be back next year. But he's here for this year. He has to stay healthy. He's got to be an asset. He's got to be a rotational guy. This also kind of muddies up who's going to be in that front seven and who's going to actually be active on game day. Will Zach Kerr no longer be active? What are they going to do? So that makes it interesting.

But then again, there's a lot a lot of decisions i think this week for the colts to be made and i just hope that arthur jones has been working his butt off for the first four weeks and doesn't come back lazy and and he's done that in the past last year he when you know he came back uh after one of his injuries he just looked looked sloppy. He wasn't effective. And I just hope that's not the case this year. I really want to see him come back and be an asset to the team because he needs to be, and that's what he was brought in to do when he was brought in. He doesn't want to be one of those guys that Reggie's talking about,

and he mentioned Arthur in there. But don't mistake it that Arthur Jones isn't a bust if he doesn't come through this year in a big way. Arthur Jones would be an absolute blowout free agent bomb if he doesn't do something in the last 12 games of this season. He's got 12 games to prove himself and to stay on the roster for next year. If he doesn't, and I'll put it this way, if he's not exceptional, he won't be here next year. There's just no two ways about it in my mind. So another reminder to check out all the Locked On Podcast Network.

Check out all the shows. They're all great. Everything is very informative. These guys do a great job. They're going to sit down and explain to you bits and pieces about their teams, and you're guys going to come out of that being much smarter about what's going on around the league, especially if you listen to Matt Williamson on the Locked On NFL show or the guys at the Locked On NFL draft.

Those two do a really good job, and Locked On Fantasy is really good, too. So make sure you guys are subscribing to all of your favorite Locked On podcasts, including this one. Like and review. If it's on Stitcher, give it a thumbs up or whatever you have to do. All that stuff helps. All that stuff draws more attention in and you guys have been doing a fantastic job so far and I really appreciate it. And also a reminder for tomorrow, if you want to come on, retweet the tweet that I put up yesterday. It's pinned to the Locked On Colts Twitter page. Follow the Twitter account. Like the Facebook page, one or the other.

If you're not on one or the other, do the opposite. And then either message me or DM me and let me know what your issues are with the Colts. Maybe you have some sort of a resolution or maybe you'd like to see certain things done. Like I said, try to be original about it. Don't come and say the Colts need to run the hurry up for 60 minutes. We've already talked about that. That's probably not going to get on the show.

But I do want to hear what you guys have to say. I want your voices to be heard as well. That's what this is all about, you and me working together and making this show as good as possible. And we are officially going to have a giveaway next week. So be listening for that because it's a good one. But that's about all I got for today. Be sure to hit me up at Locked on Colts, the Locked On Colts Facebook page,

or email me at lockedoncoltspod at gmail.com. If any of you want to advertise on the show, we are going to have a sponsor, I believe, next week. And it's a great idea to do it. Thousands of ears out here, all in the right age group. If what you're targeting is 18 to 44 year olds, that's the large majority of my audience. And, and it'd be great. I'd love to plug your businesses, especially around Indianapolis. So let me know, get ahold of me and thank you for listening. Come back tomorrow, and we should have a good little group on here for Colts Fan Friday.

We may even break down what I think is the top two or three keys to the game this Sunday. It's at 1 o'clock in Indianapolis at Lucas Oil Stadium. Let's hope it's a good one, as I don't think that any of us can handle watching another game like we did this past Sunday. Not only the loss, but for the majority of it, it was just an ugly game. I want to see some good Colts football. I don't care how the other team plays. I want to see the Colts play well, and I know you do too. So come back tomorrow, and we'll talk a little bit more

here on Locked on Colts. You are Locked On Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Locked On.