Why is Colts legend Dwight Freeney rooting for the Bills? Mario Addison and Jerry Hughes

The reason? His friendship with Mario Addison and Jerry Hughes. 

“Those are my guys,” Freeney, a member of the Colts Ring of Honor, said this week in a phone interview with The Buffalo News. “These are the dudes who I brought up in the game a little bit, so I always have this fatherly like, ‘Godfather’ type of thing with them, thinking about their successes.”

The Bills’ veteran defensive ends were young teammates and roommates in Indianapolis early in their careers. Hughes, a first-round draft pick in 2010, befriended Addison in 2011 when the Colts claimed the undrafted rookie off waivers from the Chicago Bears. It seemed like an ideal landing spot.

Indianapolis provided an opportunity to learn from all-time greats Robert Mathis and Freeney, and Hughes offered free lodging in a three-bedroom house he rented near the stadium. But both young players moved on to other teams after what Freeney described as a “perfect storm of disaster,” only to reunite nearly a decade later in Buffalo, where they’ve helped lead the Bills to a 13-3 record, the franchise’s first AFC East championship in 25 years and an AFC wild-card matchup against the organization that introduced them.

“I was just trying to soak up all the knowledge I could …” Addison said about his 10½ months over two seasons with Indianapolis. “I learned (from) two different vets, how to play ball from two different standpoints. One guy with just speed, and he could get up under the big guys, and then on the other side we had a guy that he would spin a tornado. I just learned so much from them, man, and they always taught me, ‘Take care of your body, respect your teammates and it’ll take you a long way.’ ”

Hughes was traded in 2013 to the Bills, where he developed into a franchise cornerstone, racking up double-digit sacks in each of his first two seasons in Buffalo. His 51 sacks are fifth in team history, and he’s a captain this season for the first time in his career. His streak of 124 consecutive games, the second-longest active streak for a defensive lineman in the NFL, ended when he sat out the season finale last Sunday. 

Addison had a tougher road to relevance.

The 6-foot-3, 260-pound edge rusher played for five head coaches and four franchises in his first two seasons in the NFL, including nearly a year with the Colts, before developing into one of the most consistent sack artists in the league over eight seasons in Carolina.

That’s where he racked up 55 of 60 career sacks, including at least nine in each of the last four seasons.

That’s where he signed his first big contract, advanced to Super Bowl 50 and found comfort in his football family after the murder of his younger brother, Gjamal Antonio Rodriqcus, who was shot to death in 2019.

And it was the relationships he forged along the way, including with Buffalo head coach Sean McDermott and first-year defensive line coach Eric Washington, when they were assistants in Carolina, along with his friendship with Hughes, that led him to the Bills.

“Whenever we would play Carolina, I would always tell him, ‘We’ve always got a spot for you up in Buffalo,’ ” Hughes said.

Addison, 33, signed a three-year, $30.45 million contract with the Bills in March.

He leads the team with five sacks this season, tied with linebacker A.J. Klein. Hughes, 32, is third with 4.5 sacks.

“Mario had several suitors” in free agency, Washington said. “Someone with almost 40 sacks in the past four years is going to have a lot of people interested in him, and he mentioned to me that he was waiting to see where I was going to go, and that’s exactly where he was going, and we laughed about that and I appreciated that and the feeling is definitely mutual.

“From the very first day (in Buffalo), Mario could complete a lot of my sentences and assertions when it came to technique and he was almost like having – Jacques Cesaire has done an unbelievable job assisting with the group – but Mario is almost like a third assistant for me.”

Freeney, who left Indianapolis after the 2012 season but signed a one-day contract to retire with the Colts in 2018, said he felt no disappointment about Addison and Hughes starting against the Colts this weekend, as opposed to for them.

“You play long enough in this league, you understand that it’s a business, man. I wish them the best luck. You know? Screw it,” Freeney said. “When I left the Colts, I went to San Diego. I almost tried to go to a place just so I could play the Colts so I could destroy them. That’s just kind of the mentality of an NFL player, especially when you leave a team that you had so many memories with. Right?

“How could you let me go? How could you trade me? How could you not sign me back? That is going to be running through those guys’ veins while they’re going out there. I know they’re going to be revved up. And it’s the playoffs, so I’m looking for really big games for those guys, and I wish them the best. Hopefully they can go ahead and get a ring.”

‘Under the radar'

Retired Troy football coach Larry Blakeney, who has more wins than any coach in Sun Belt Conference history, remembers Addison as a good student and impact player who never loafed, but never imagined he’d have a shot at the NFL when the defensive lineman joined his program after two years at Northeast Mississippi Community College.

“I had no clue,” Blakeney said this week. “We had a bunch of guys that (reached the NFL) along the way, and it’s not always easily recognizable. You can say, ‘That guy’s tall enough, he’s got a good enough body mass, he can run good enough and all that, but you can’t measure that heart until you’ve been around him a while, and we were around Mario really long enough to measure that, but you never did know how the pros were going to perceive it.

“And I’ll tell you what, there ain’t many real draftees at Troy, you know?”

There have been a few.

Osi Umenyiora was a second-round pick by the New York Giants in 2003.

DeMarcus Ware was drafted 11th overall by the Dallas Cowboys in 2005.

Leodis McKelvin was the 11th overall pick by the Bills in 2008.

“Quite frankly, I was looking for a player like Mario who was under the radar,” said agent Garcia Major, who has represented Addison throughout his career. “But someone that I felt had the talent and had the work ethic and passion to do what he needed to do to take advantage of an opportunity when it came along. I believed he had the potential to have a successful career.”

There had been chatter about Addison being a late-round draft pick, but it wasn’t a surprise when he went undrafted in 2011, in the midst of the NFL’s 18-week lockout that spanned from mid-March until late July. Several teams were interested in signing him as a free agent, Major said.

Addison signed with the Bears, eager to learn from Julius Peppers. He made the 53-man roster and dressed for four regular season games before being released.

“It really came down to a numbers thing,” Major said. “I don’t think it was a situation where Chicago wanted to release Mario, but it was a business move. And being able to explain to Mario why it came about, it really allowed him to know that it had less to do with his ability and more to do with the business side of what happens, when there are injuries and things of that nature.

“He never lost confidence in his ability, and I reinforced, ‘Hey, I’m here for you and we’re going to find the next best landing spot for you. And as long as you keep your ears pinned back and do what you do, everything will work itself out.’”

Addison was claimed by the Colts the next day.

“We liked him coming out of Troy,” then-Colts general manager Chris Polian said this week. “Liked his motor, liked his pass rush, his character, all those things, and then had a chance to get him when Chicago let him go. And at that point in Indy, we had Freeney and Mathis and Jerry Hughes, and Jerry had a little bit of a rough start, but I’m really happy for both guys where their careers are …

“Athletic pass rushers who play hard, those guys are always going to get a chance and Mario has taken advantage of that.”

'A matter of time'

Addison appeared in just six games with Indianapolis, assisting on four special teams tackles, but the statistics don’t reflect his growth as a result of the experience.

Freeney and Mathis would get a veteran rest day each week, beginning around midseason.

“So the younger guys were able to get a lot of reps in practice,” Polian said, “and then we had a great defensive line coach in John Teerlinck, who wanted speed, wanted guys to be able to attack the corners.

“Some teams don’t believe in the arm-over swim. Some teams don’t believe in the spin. It’s a different rush style. But John wanted athletic speed guys with a lot of movements skill, an ability to bend, be athletic, mix things up, have a different repertoire, and it was very important that they be athletic enough to be able to rush with their hands and their feet at the same time. Some guys can’t do that. They become a little bit sectional trying to do it, if that makes sense. And you’re always looking for extra rushers.”

Teerlinck, a Rochester native considered one of the greatest defensive line coaches in NFL history, won three Super Bowls, two with the Denver Broncos and one with the Colts, and is the namesake for the annual award presented to the NFL’s best defensive line coach.

He died May 10. He was 69 years old.

“When John Teerlinck was still alive, he was a guy that he always emphasized, ‘Make sure you teach these young guys the right way, how to play the game,’ ” Freeney said, “and we took every opportunity to do so and to see them flourish and still play for years and years – both those guys are over 10 years now – it makes me smile knowing that me and Rob, we did something right.”

Teerlinck’s son, Bill, was the Bills’ defensive line coach the last two seasons before accepting the same position at Virginia Tech.

He was a defensive assistant on the Colts under his father in 2011.

“It’s very unusual for that much talent to be assembled in one room at one time in one era,” Bill Teerlinck said this week, “with two of what I believe are future Hall of Fame ends in Freeney and Mathis, and here’s Jerry, the young first-round pick, heir apparent, the guy who’s going to take over, and he’s working behind them and learning and soaking it up, and then we were able to land Mario.

“You could see, maybe not fully developed yet, but Hughes and Mario both had what Robert and Dwight had. They had juice and a knack for getting to the quarterback and the belief and the understanding of how important the sack was. … And the thing that you could tell, and it didn’t always show up every week in the stat sheet the first year or so for those guys, but their work ethic, their thirst for knowledge, how they studied the older guys, you just knew it was a matter of time.”

A huge change?

The Colts had been the cream of the AFC for more than a decade, piling up double-digit victories in 11 of the previous 12 seasons. But Indy staggered to a 2-14 record in 2011, which Peyton Manning missed because of neck surgery, finishing 30th in the league in total offense with quarterbacks Curtis Painter (0-8 as a starter), Dan Orlovsky (2-3) and Kerry Collins (0-3).

Indianapolis then fired Jim Caldwell and his coaching staff and restructured the front office.

The new regime, helmed by coach Chuck Pagano, changed the base defense from a 4-3 to a 3-4 alignment, forcing defensive ends to become outside linebackers.

“Caldwell getting fired after that year was criminal,” Freeney said. “He should have never got fired, but it is what it is. That year was like a perfect storm of disaster for us as an organization. The next year, they brought in Pagano, and he’s a great guy, but he ended up turning the whole entire system upside down to where you had your defensive ends who like putting their hands on the ground and don’t know anything about being outside linebackers, turning them into outside linebackers.

“It was just a disaster.”

Pagano, the defensive coordinator for the Bears, was not available for an interview this week, according to a team spokesperson, because Chicago is preparing for a wild-card game Sunday at New Orleans.

James Bettcher, who most recently served as the New York Giants’ defensive coordinator, coached outside linebackers with the Colts in 2012.

“When you’re switching from 4-3 to 3-4 … the misconception is it’s a huge change,” Bettcher said this week. “Well, the truth is once you get through this like 15%, the rest of it’s the same, because you play so much nickel defense with four down as opposed to five on the line. Outside linebackers play so much of that with the looks that you get offensively in the league now that it is not such a drastic switch as you think.”

But it is a switch, and the positions require different skillsets.

“It’s the discussion you have in every draft room across the league,” Polian said. “What are the ‘edge’ players, you know? Everybody has this term now, he’s an ‘edge.’ Well, that’s great. I’ve never been in a draft room where we have a position, ‘edge.’ They have to do different things in different schemes.”

Freeney reunited with Bettcher in 2015, when he was the defensive coordinator with the Arizona Cardinals, which ran a 3-4 defense. Mathis, who did return requests for comment, retired after the 2016 season and joined the Colts' coaching staff until stepping away before last season.

"Dwight and Robert were so great with guys," Bettcher said. "They’d be after practice, he’d be asking those guys questions on the side, getting in extra work. Robert and Dwight, when practice was over, they were the kings. And this was my first true NFL experience. So that’s what I know. And I use examples of those guys everywhere I’ve coached since."

Eight years later, Freeney remains incredulous about the Colts switching to a 3-4 scheme.

“It’s completely different,” Freeney said, “and I think it was ridiculous, in my mind, when you have two guys, the staples of that defense, who have only played defensive end their entire career. You only have 4-3, hand-in-the-dirt guys, and then you transition your defense and your two staples and turn them to doing something completely different that they’ve never done before…

“It makes them like, ‘Wait a minute. What do I have to do? Drop back in coverage?’ It brings in some doubt. And then that ripple effect just continues on throughout that defense. So of course, you’ve got a young guy like Mario, who’s learning the defensive end position with his hand in the ground and how to play a certain technique and how to play a tackle or a down block or all these plays, and the next year he had to learn how to drop back in coverage and do different things. ‘No, that stance isn’t right,’ and all these other things. That can affect a player. And I’m happy that he’s still around and that didn’t affect him too bad, to where he was no longer in the league.”

Finding a home

By early October, Addison had been waived and signed to the practice squad.

A week later, he had an opportunity to sign with Washington, and as much as he valued working with Freeney and Mathis and his friendship with Hughes, he couldn’t turn down the promise of playing time.

The weight of his decision hit him while packing.

“It was rough, man, because I thought I found a home,” Addison said. “I felt a great relationship with guys on the Colts team, and when I say ‘great relationship’ – great relationship. Everybody was fun to be around. And everybody enjoyed each other.”

Hughes took it hard, as well, but knew Addison had to do what was best for his career.

“It was tough just because he was my roommate,” Hughes said. “We had a lot of fun in Indy together going back and forth from the practice facility and things like that. We built a great friendship, so it was tough.

“The (Colts’ defensive line) room was certainly a lot different. I was back to being the only young guy. But it was a great opportunity with the both of us being young defensive ends and the position that we were able to watch Dwight and Rob, two guys who we kind of modeled our game after, took some bits and pieces from, and just kept learning and growing throughout the league.”

Addison lasted five games in Washington before he was on the move again, this time signed by the Carolina, where he developed into a force.

Washington, the Bills defensive line coach who’s worked with Addison for nine seasons, said the versatility born from his switch from 4-3 defensive end to 3-4 outside linebacker in Indianapolis has been a tremendous boon to his career.

“That’s the thing about Mario that really stands out,” Washington said. “He has so much flexibility in terms of where we like to align him and really depend on the level of execution we can get, depending on what we ask him to do, and also we can depend on the production.

“Mario can rush at either defensive end position, we utilize him in our drop system, he can align and rush and win as an inside rusher, and he can play from a two-point stance or a three-point stance, so a lot of flexibility with Mario and it really makes our gameday rotation that much better and that much more potent on Sunday. That’s one of the things that you love about him.”

Addison considers his experience in Indianapolis, what he learned from Mathis and Freeney and his friendship with Hughes, as integral to his success.

“It was very critical, man. Up to today, man,” Addison said. “I know Jerry always gets tired of me telling him, ‘Thank you.’ He’s always like, ‘It’s OK, man. It’s OK.’ I’m so humble, man, and grateful to have a guy like him as a friend. And I don’t call too many people friends.

“Jerry definitely is a friend. And this is probably one of the happiest I’ve ever been in my career, man, really just to be able to play on the side with him, because when we first came into the league we were young guys trying to find our way, and now we’re both starters on the same team and it’s a sight to see.”