INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The conventional wisdom heading into the 2002 NFL draft was Dwight Freeney was too small to play defensive end or hold up against the run.
Critics also contended his trademark spin move would hit a wall against the league’s bigger, stronger offensive linemen.
Former Colts general manager Bill Polian and former coach Tony Dungy saw something completely different on tape — a pre-eminent pass rusher who would be a perfect fit in Dungy’s patented Tampa 2 defense.
Freeney didn’t disappoint. He took full advantage of his speed, his innovative moves and used the motivation of proving those doubters wrong all the way to a 16-year Hall of Fame career. He will be presented by Colts owner Jim Irsay, who is expected to be in a wheelchair after being injured in a fall.
“We all believed Dwight had the ability to be a force in the league,” Polian told The Associated Press. “The spin move was one Dwight executed perfectly and really perfected, so it was fine with us. But his base move was the bull rush, and he was so strong and fast he could run by most slow offensive tackles and guys who weren’t as strong.”
Polian, the Hall of Fame executive, simply followed the plan.
After creating the blueprint that produced four straight AFC titles in Buffalo, Polian spent his early years in Indianapolis putting together an offense around Peyton Manning. By the time Dungy arrived in 2002, he wanted defensive players who could wreak havoc on opponents and the speedy Freeney fit the bill perfectly.
Dungy concurred. So when draft analysts immediately branded the selection as the dreaded reach, the Colts shrugged it off.
Freeney did not.
“I always had to bring my A-plus game,” he said at his retirement ceremony. “The Jonathan Ogdens, the Drew Breeses, the Tom Bradys, those guys made me bring my A-plus game every time. It raised my competitive nature to places I never knew existed.”
The Colts found out how special Freeney would be quickly.
Dungy moved the former Syracuse star into the starting lineup midway through his rookie season, thanks to his routine penchant for embarrassing offensive linemen, harassing quarterbacks, forcing turnovers and wrecking games.
By the end of that season, Freeney had 46 tackles and nine forced fumbles, both of which became career bests, and 13 sacks — one more than eventual AP Defensive Rookie of the Year Julius Peppers, whom Carolina took with the No. 2 overall draft pick that April. Peppers also will be inducted Saturday though Freeney is scheduled to speak first.
Over those next 10 seasons, Freeney changed the game and Indy’s image with the help of a virtual carbon copy pass rusher, Robert Mathis, who arrived in 2003.
That tag-team tandem quickly emerged as one of the NFL’s most feared pass-rushing duos, making Freeney even more dangerous. Freeney won the league’s sacks title in 2004 with 16. Two years later, Freeney and Mathis were the key components on Indy’s Super Bowl-winning defense.
They didn’t just challenge one another, they outmaneuvered opponents by learning one another’s strengths and showing younger defensive teammates how to compete.
“He always wanted to race,” former Colts linebacker and current assistant coach Cato June said, referring to Freeney. “He was super fast and wanted to be the best athlete on the field. So you have these battles and you have this young Robert Mathis, who’s just as fast. Those are the first interactions you have and then when you see a guy just day in and day out become an un-blockable beast, it’s like wow!”
Freeney’s impact on the sport was boundless.
The move he developed almost as a lark in high school was suddenly mimicked everywhere — to the chagrin of traditional coaches who long complained it was not a proper technique.
In Indianapolis, all Freeney’s teammates and coaches cared about was that it worked — even if Freeney wasn’t playing the sport exactly by the book.
“I used to get called for traveling all day (in basketball), so I couldn’t really do the basketball thing,” he said. “So I got on the football field and the coach said ‘Dwight, I don’t care how you get there, just get there.’ So I started using the spin move and kept going with it and it became a natural thing.”
It changed Freeney’s image forever.
He finished his 11-year career in Indianapolis with a franchise-record 107 1/2 sacks, a number only Mathis has surpassed, and embraced the simple celebration of a salute.
After the 2012 season, Freeney left the Colts and headed to San Diego for two seasons. He spent his final three NFL seasons bouncing from Arizona to Atlanta to Seattle and finally Detroit before retiring where it all began, Indianapolis, in April 2018.
The final tally: 350 tackles, 125 1/2 sacks, 47 forced fumbles, seven double-digit sack seasons, seven Pro Bowl appearances, three All-Pro selections and one Super Bowl ring.
Yet for Freeney and his teammates, it was never about the numbers or awards. All they ever wanted to do was to prove to the doubters the Colts could win their way.
“Dwight deserves everything he’s getting,” former receiver and current Colts assistant Reggie Wayne said of the first defensive teammate he’s seen enter the Hall of Fame. “We knew if we scored enough points, Dwight was going to be able to cut it loose. We knew on third down Dwight was going to make a play for us. We knew those guys were going to go after the quarterback to get the ball back, especially Dwight with the spin.”
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