Polian Show week 6

Oehser brings us part 1

“Jim Caldwell about three weeks ago called him in and essentially said to him, ‘Ed, you have to pick it up – the production, the hustle, the effort and the ability to lose the weight has to be improved,”’ Polian said Monday, adding that Caldwell told Johnson, “Otherwise, we’re going to have to make a change.”’

Polian said he spoke to Johnson “a couple of weeks later.”

“I called him in,” Polian said, “and said, ‘Ed, I’m really concerned about the weight. I don’t see the kind of movement in the weight that we think is important. That’s hurting you in terms of pursuit and the kind of sustained effort over a long period of time that it takes to win in our defense.’”

Polian said Johnson told him he would try to lose the weight “but he hadn’t had much success with it.”

“To his credit, he tried a little bit with extra running and things of that nature, but after the Tennessee game when we had our Monday morning staff meeting the defensive coaches were very adamant about the fact that Ed had not measured up to the standard of performance they require and that they wanted to make a change,” Polian said. “We had a lengthy meeting about it. Both Jim Caldwell and I discussed it with them at length and went into it in great detail and in the end, Jim Caldwell decided it was the right thing to do. He already had put Ed on notice about it. So, we made the change.”

and part 2

*Rookie DT Fili Moala, who has yet to play this season but who likely will move into the rotation after the release last week of DT Ed Johnson: “He is ready to play. He has not been dressed nor has he played in the regular season thus far. He will do so on Sunday.”

*On the running back rotation, in which veteran Joseph Addai is starting with rookie Donald Brown playing extensively as a backup: “Right now, there’s no plan to change the rotation. We feel pretty good about it. We think it has been successful for us. Donald is a rookie. Traditionally, rookies wear down toward the end of the season, so we’re trying to husband his carries early as we did with Joseph when he was a rookie, to make sure he’s healthy and viable at the end. That leads us to the rotation we have now. It has served us well and I think we’ll stay with it.”