INDIANAPOLIS (AP) The Indianapolis Colts have signed offensive lineman Justin Anderson, one of the team’s three seventh-round draft picks.

Anderson, a 342-pound guard, is the fifth drafted rookie to sign with the Colts in two days.

The move came on the same day Indy cut tight end Brody Eldridge, a fifth-round pick in 2010, and brought in another quarterback.

Eldridge caught 14 passes for 84 yards in two seasons but was used primarily as a blocker.

Indy took two tight ends in April: Stanford’s Coby Fleener in the second round and Clemson’s Dwayne Allen in the third. Both are considered better receivers than blockers.

The Colts also signed David Legree, a 6-foot-4, 225-pound undrafted rookie quarterback from Hampton in Virginia. He’s the third rookie quarterback on the roster.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Indianapolis Colts have cut tight end Brody Eldridge and brought in another quarterback.

Eldridge played two seasons in Indy after the Colts took him in the fifth round of the 2010 draft. In 27 games, he caught 14 passes for 84 yards but was primarily a blocker.

Indy took two tight ends in April — Stanford’s Coby Fleener in the second round and Clemson’s Dwayne Allen in the third. Both are considered better receivers than blockers.

The Colts also signed David Legree, a 6-foot-4, 225-pound undrafted rookie quarterback from Hampton in Virginia. Legree is the third rookie quarterback on the roster, joining No. 1 overall pick Andrew Luck and seventh-round pick Chandler Harnish.

Harnish missed Wednesday’s practice with a knee injury.

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Indianapolis Colts have cut tight end Brody Eldridge and brought in another quarterback.

Eldridge played two seasons in Indy after the Colts took him in the fifth round of the 2010 draft. In 27 games, he caught 14 passes for 84 yards but was primarily a blocker.

Indy took two tight ends in April — Stanford’s Coby Fleener in the second round and Clemson’s Dwayne Allen in the third. Both are considered better receivers than blockers.

The Colts also signed David Legree, a 6-foot-4, 225-pound undrafted rookie quarterback from Hampton in Virginia. Legree is the third rookie quarterback on the roster, joining No. 1 overall pick Andrew Luck and seventh-round pick Chandler Harnish.

Harnish missed Wednesday’s practice with a knee injury.

Copyright 2012 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

The Indianapolis Colts’ No. 1 draft pick Andrew Luck isn’t participating in the current on-going organized team activity (OTA), giving an early indication as to what kind of quarterback and teammate Luck is going to be in Indy: a smart one.

Is Luck holding out for a monstrous contract? No. Is he throwing a tantrum and refusing to play for the Colts like another former Stanford quarterback did in 1983 after being selected No. 1 overall? No. Is he injured? No.

Luck is back in Palo Alto, Calif., right now, finishing up his degree in architectural design.

The final two courses that are required for him to complete his degree at Stanford weren’t offered until the spring semester, which runs until June 7. In a great piece by Michael Silver of Yahoo! Sports, Luck doesn’t really want to be there right now–he’d rather be in Indianapolis with his team–but he’s doing what needs to be done. And as a Colts fan, I couldn’t be happier with his decision.

Sure, NFL rules prohibit him participating in OTA’s until he’s done with his coursework, but if earning his college degree wasn’t important to him, Luck would have foregone his final year or two of eligibility and entered the NFL back before the new collective bargaining agreement brought rookie contracts back down to Earth.

Sure, missing a month or so of off-season preparation during his rookie year isn’t ideal from a football standpoint, but when looking at the big picture of life, it’s not that big of a deal, especially when the payout is a bachelor’s degree from a top-notch institution like Stanford. With that, Luck is armed for a life outside of football, giving him a leg up on his NFL colleagues who left college without a degree.

The Colts coaches are keeping in contact with him while he wraps up his education, and by Silver’s account, Luck already got off to a tremendous start as a member of the Colts at the three-day rookie minicamp earlier this month.

“I’m told he was calling out plays like he had the whole playbook memorized, and some of the other rookies were looking around like, ‘What?’” Colts OT Mike Tepper told Silver. “Some of the guys, including the other QBs, were saying that Luck is already better than 25 of the [starting] quarterbacks in the league.”

Missing a few weeks of camp four months before the season starts isn’t going to permanently stunt his growth, nor will it set the team back. By the time Sept. 9 rolls around and Luck takes his first regular season snap in the NFL against the Chicago Bears, no one will remember–much less, care about–the time he is missing right now. But on June 7, he’ll have something that lasts forever: a college education.

Like most NFL fans, I like my team’s quarterback to make good decisions on the field. I also like him to make good decisions off the field. With Luck’s decision to fight through the senioritis and finish up his degree before focusing all of his attention on the upcoming season, he’s showing me that he’s one smart and dedicated quarterback–one who’s willing to stay until the job is done. One who realizes that life is more important than football. And one who realizes that football can take a back seat for a little bit while he sets himself up for success after his playing days are over.

Touchdown, Andrew Luck.

The author is a resident of central Indiana and a longtime fan of the Colts. He is also a Featured Contributor in Sports for the Yahoo! Contributor Network. You can follow him on Twitter at @RedZoneWriting and on Facebook.

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Indianapolis Colts add depth through undrafted free agents

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For a generation of Indianapolis Colts fans, Bill Polian will always be remembered as the architect of the first golden era of the NFL in our Circle City, and even the debacle of the lost 2011 season probably can’t change that perception. Before he ever came west, though, Polian made his name as the general manager of the Buffalo Bills teams that won three straight AFC championships in the early 1990s. Back then, I often found myself rooting for the Bills in the playoffs, partly because they toiled in the same division as the lowly Colts, but mostly because they maintained a likable underdog persona year after year. I guess that three straight Super Bowl losses can dull the edge of public perception, and those “failures” were also enough to cost Polian his Buffalo gig in February of 1993. Time apparently heals, though, as the Bills announced on May 14 that Polian will soon be honored as the newest member of the team’s “Wall of Fame.” It may be a bit early yet, but this news made me ponder Polian’s ultimate place in Colts’ history.

If you just consider that Polian was in charge when the Colts drafted Manning in 1998, it’s tempting to elevate the President to “Ring of Honor” status without a second thought. Rumors have always persisted, though, the whispers around town were that Polian preferred Ryan Leaf and that Irsay pulled rank to get Manning in Blue and White. Who knows? Had Polian been a little more seasoned in his relationship with Irsay at the time, maybe Leaf would have landed in Indy, flamed out and taken the franchise with him. Without Manning, after all, there is a decent chance that the Colts would have moved west at some point in the last 15 years.

As it stands, we have to give Polian at least some of the credit for selecting Manning and keeping him happy for more than a decade. In his early drafting days with the Colts, Polian delivered a nice stable of players to complement Manning’s talents. The list of picks before their Super Bowl runs reads like a roll call of Colts stars during the 2000s: Edgerrin James, Reggie Wayne, Dwight Freeney, Dallas Clark, Bob Sanders. In the last several years, the Colts have pretty much whiffed on their first-rounders, which many attribute to the growing responsibilities of Polian’s son, team general manager Chris Polian.

So, there is a mixed bag for Bill Polian in terms of his Indianapolis legacy. Many saw him as something of a tyrant, and many others think that he was largely a puppet for Irsay. My take is that Polian could get pretty defensive at times and was very hard-headed when it came to admitting a mistake, which may be why the Colts were caught flat-footed in terms of quarterback depth when Manning went down last year. Still, Polian was in charge when Indianapolis became a bona fide NFL city, and he managed to keep the wheels on and rolling when a lot of big egos were involved. To me, that should earn him the benefit of the doubt and some mantel space in the Colts’ trophy room.

Adam Hughes was raised, and still lives, in rural Indiana. He has been a Colts fans since the team arrived in Indianapolis on a snowy morning in 1984. The Blue and White eventually replaced the Chicago Bears as his #1 team, and Super Bowl XLI was a dream come true.

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This year’s Indianapolis Colts rookie camp deserves its own theme: Andrew Luck’s Rookie Reunion.

After drafting Luck and Stanford tight end Coby Fleener with their first two picks in last week’s NFL Draft, the Colts signed Stanford wide receiver Griff Whalen as one of 15 rookie free agents.

So Luck will have some familiar targets for his first weekend of passes as a Colt from Friday through Sunday at the Colts practice complex on Indy’s west side.

“You are always looking for playmakers,” Colts coach Chuck Pagano said Sunday, looking back at the draft. “You want to surround your No.1 pick with (playmakers). We said all along (Luck) doesn’t have to carry this whole thing on his shoulders. You try to surround him with as many guys as you can, and we certainly did that. Guys that can score touchdowns, you can’t have enough of them.”

The Colts are expected to have 25 players at rookie camp, and nine of them are skill position players: Luck, Fleener, Whalen, tight end Dwayne Allen, receivers T.Y. Hilton, LaVon Brazill and Jabi Sambrano and quarterback Chandler Harnish.

Fleener and Whalen are the most familiar with Luck, but other players are eager to develop rapport with the new quarterback.

“He’s been touted as the top quarterback in the draft, and all of college football, so I’m ecstatic to catches passes from him,” Allen said. “Of course with all the media coverage he had throughout his junior season, I’ve been able to watch some of his games and see how much he loves the tight end. So, hopefully, that love translates to his NFL game.”

This week will be the only official practice time for Luck with the Colts until he graduates from Stanford in June. He is allowed, under the rules, to have unofficial workouts with other Colts offsite, perhaps in California or at Miami where wide receiver Reggie Wayne lives.

At any rate, he knows there remain areas he needs to work in preparation for the season.

“I’ve got to get back to throwing a good deep ball,” Luck said. “I think that comes, too, with reps with the receivers and sort of feeling each other out and seeing the differences between all of our guys. Then, (the receivers) seeing how I throw and all of that good stuff. But that will come with reps and time, and I am looking forward to getting going with the guys.”

Luck said he has already investigated the possibility of finding some places to work with receivers while he’s finishing up at Stanford.

“Absolutely, we’re trying to be very creative,” Luck said. “I’ve gotten a couple of texts from Reggie about it. We’re trying to organize some things. There is so much going on leading up to this and I didn’t really have much time to sit down and think, but I’ll definitely talk to coach Clyde (Christensen), coach (Bruce) Arians, and the receivers.

“I guess they are learning the playbook, too, right now, as well. It’d be nice to let that sink in with the guys, so they can help me with some of the stuff when we get together.”