Indianapolis Colts President Bill Polian: DE Dwight Freeney was expected to play all along

Indianapolis Colts DE Dwight Freeney (Charlie Riedel/AP Photo)

The biggest story of Indianapolis Colts Super Bowl week wasn't too much of a story at all.

At least not to Colts' President Bill Polian.

While speculation abounded throughout last week about the playing status of five-time Pro Bowl DE Dwight Freeney because of an ankle injury, Polian said there was never much doubt inside the organization that he would play in Super Bowl XLIV against the New Orleans Saints.

Polian said rookie CB Jerraud Powers was far more uncertain with a foot injury.

“Jerraud was a game-time decision, because really for two weeks he was fighting hard to get through what was a pretty serious injury,” Polian said on his weekly radio show on 97.1 Hank FM in Indianapolis Tuesday. “In Dwight's case, I don't know where all of the public furor came from.

“We expected that he would play. We said it was a two-to-three week injury. He worked assiduously to rehab it. He didn't have any practice, but we fully expected he would play and he did. . . . That was what our doctors had predicted. We said questionable, because that's what you're required to do, but we fully expected he would play.

“Jerraud was a little closer call, and a very courageous performance on his behalf.”

Polian on Monday also addressed:

* A shorter offseason for the Colts: "(Head Coach) Jim Caldwell and I talked about that in Florida. We'll put our heads together and map out a schedule in the next couple of weeks. They'll come back later. We have to give them plenty of time off. And we will. We'll probably shorten the OTAs (organized team activities) down too. Fellows like (safety) Antoine Bethea, (cornerback) Jacob Lacey, (cornerback) Jerraud Powers don't need a lot of work in the offseason. They've had more than enough in the regular season.”

* Colts fans: “Incredible. Our place is a very tough place to play. The fans have made it that way. We're very grateful to them. This year's over with. It was a great year. It didn't end up the way we wanted it to, but it was a great year nonetheless. They were a great part of it and we're all looking forward to next year. We're going to have a good team again.”

* The call on the onside kick: “A couple of players told me there were three or four officials saying, 'Blue ball, blue ball.' But who knows? That's the heat of the moment. That's the old saying that a police officer will tell you in an eyewitness account two eyewitnesses will often differ greatly in their account of an incident. From my perspective, we should have handled that routinely. It's a routine play. If if it couldn't be handled, at least knock it out of bounds. We didn't do that. . . . There is some conjecture that the wrong call was made on the onside kick. I can't tell that looking at the tape. It's a big scrum. The officials as a matter of course don't go diving in there to try to break it up. They try to do the best they can. It seemed to me it lasted about 10 minutes. But that's not the point. The point is we could have done four things on that play, three of which would have been positive for us.”

MORE COLTS NEWS

Reviewing the Polian show . . .

* Part One: "We just didn't execute." Here.

* Part Two: Improvement needed. Here.

* Part Three: Dwight Freeney expected to play all along. Here.

* Part Four: MLB Gary Brackett wanted back. Here.