Colts Envision DE Dwight Freeney Playing Similar Role To Terrell Suggs

New Indianapolis Colts head coach Chuck Pagano believes that DE Dwight Freeney will be able to play a similar role to one played by Terrell Suggs in Baltimore.

“Suggs’ hand is in the dirt way more than he is standing up,” Pagano said, per Dan Pompei of the National Football Post. “I’d be crazy to have those guys dropping more than rushing…. If I dropped Suggs too much, they probably would have fired me midseason.”

This is a great point from Pagano that helps to dispel the notion that Freeney will be playing coverage a decent amount of the time. In fact, Pagano mentions that he only had Suggs drop into coverage between “five and 10 percent of the time.” That’s a pretty reasonable number considering that Freeney’s skill set is more geared towards getting after the quarterback. It should at the very least be interesting to see how well the combo of Freeney and Robert Mathis do in a 3-4 system next year.