*PRESIDENT BILL POLIAN AND K-ADAM VINATIERI *
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PRESIDENT BILL POLIAN (opening remarks) Thursday, March 23, 2006
"On behalf of (Colts owner and CEO) Jim Irsay and everyone with the Colts organization, it's my pleasure to welcome Adam Vinatieri here and I look forward to him having a great career here. He's had a great career in New England and we hope that he has 10 good years here. I have had numerous questions in the last couple of days about the timeline of how this went down, so I'll give you the details and hopefully that will fill in the blanks. Monday morning, (Vice President of Football Operations) Chris (Polian) and I got together and discussed the status of the free agent market as we told you we were going to before it began. I had been away at the competition committee meetings last week. We looked at the market, we looked at our needs, and we both agreed that Adam was certainly worth exploring at this point since he hadn't re-signed in New England. Then, within the matter of the hour, Chris got a call from Mr. (Gary) Uberstine, and they picked it up from there. We met with Jim Irsay Monday afternoon to discuss it, and it went forward from there to conclusion. So, to the extent that anybody had questions about the timeline and how it occurred, that's how it went. Obviously, we're glad to have Adam here and we're hopeful that he will enjoy his time here and we know he is going to do a great job for us."
K-ADAM VINATIERI (opening remarks) Thursday, March 23, 2006
"First of all, I would like to thank all of the Colts organization, Mr. (Jim) Irsay, Mr. (Bill) Polian, (Head) Coach (Tony) Dungy. Everyone that I have met here has been very, very great to me. For me, obviously leaving New England is tough in a sense that I had many, many great memories there, but the Indianapolis Colts organization is such a great organization, a winning organization. Everything about them is fantastic, so it made a lot of sense to me, and it was an easy decision at this point to jump on board with the Indianapolis Colts. I'm very proud and very honored to be here and hopefully I can live up to all of their expectations. They have a winning organization here, and I expect to do everything I can to help them continue that."
K-ADAM VINATIERI (on if he finds it ironic that he is going to the Patriots' biggest AFC rival over the last few years) Thursday, March 23, 2006
"Well, that was definitely one of the things when I thought about the situation and the opportunities that I had. The Indianapolis Colts are a great team and a great organization, and I knew that the opportunity of continuing to win football games and the possibility of winning championships is at a very high level here, and that was definitely one of the considerations. It will be nice to play inside a little bit more than in New England. There are a lot of pros involved with this, so it made the decision easier."
K-ADAM VINATIERI (on if he is looking forward to the trip to New England next season)
