Chris Hagan, Sports Anchor for FOX59 & CBS4 Joins!

**Nigel** (0:00)
My name is Nigel, Jason Hammer, right over there with a very special guest on the hotline.

**Jason Hammer** (0:06)
From our news gathering partners at Fox59 and CBS4, sports director Chris Hagan joins us. My man, how are you?

**Chris Hagan** (0:17)
You know what, it's funny because it used to be when you'd say from Fox59 and CBS4, I would just say, no, I'm just Fox59. But now, since Chris Whitlick left, I have become the guy on both channels. So this has actually turned into a real job, which I never signed up for. But yeah, you'll be seeing a lot more of me for better or worse.

**Jason Hammer** (0:37)
Well, that's the best news for the ratings, right? Hell, it's going to be like sweeps week all the time. More Hagan, more eyeballs to the screens.

**Chris Hagan** (0:45)
I think the people have spoken. We've gotten countless emails and phone calls like, we need more Chris Hagan in our lives. And by God, we want to give the viewers what they want.

**Jason Hammer** (0:55)
If I had a dollar for every time someone said, Angela and Chelsea off my screen and put Chris Hagan on there, I'd be a wealthy man.
Hey, Colts Camp underway. And before we get into like the story lines of Colts Camp and that kind of stuff, Nigel and I were talking about this the other day. Tell me if you agree or not, Chris. I've lived in Indy my whole life. I'm 48 years old. The last couple of years, it's felt like the buzz about Colts Camp hasn't been there. Like in years past, people would be losing their minds. Get your tickets. We're going to camp. What's Reggie Wayne going to show up in? What's Edger and James going to show up in? Like it's almost like we had to remind people Colts Camp is underway right now. Is that a problem?

**Chris Hagan** (1:44)
Well, you remember there used to be a time in the 2000s where you ask a man on the street or woman.
Name 25 Colts players. And they would say Peyton Manning, Dallas Clark, Edger and James, Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne. They would name the entire offensive line. And nowadays you'd be hard pressed to say, hey, name me 10 Colts players.
It's just you had that excitement because every year it was, well, they're going to hang a banner. They're going to win the division. That goes without saying. They're going to be in the playoffs. It's just a matter of, you know, is this another year to go to the Super Bowl? Or is this another year to be disappointed? Because that was the mentality. And when you have a generational quarterback like Peyton Manning, that's what you're going to have. And then you get Andrew Luck and you have that same mentality. Like every year, this is going to be a playoff year. But then when you have so many years without making the playoffs, so many years when you don't even know who your quarterback is, so many years when there's a revolving door of players on the roster, it's hard to get that same excitement. And now that excitement has been, you know, there's still sports excitement in this town. You know, everybody rallied behind, you know, unless you're a Purdue fan, IU football, the Pacers run last year to the NBA finals, you know, a little more than a year ago. You had, you know, the fever. So I think that same excitement exists, but right now it's not with the Colts. But if you can start stacking those wins like they did last year, seven and one, eight and two start, you could find the people coming back and saying, okay, now I'm starting to believe. And then of course an injury to Daniel Jones, and that goes right down the toilet. So I think it's kind of a wait and see thing with like, okay, is Jones going to be healthy? You know, he had a torn Achilles in December, and here we are seven months later, he's been cleared to play and he's out there. But he's had injury problems before, and there's a reason he didn't stay with the Giants, the team that took him initially. So it's kind of a, yeah, that was fun last year, but it ended in disappointing fashion with a seven game losing streak.
Let me, give me a reason to believe again, and that's where it all starts, is at training camp.

**Nigel** (3:45)
So the bar is kind of low. What do you, what would you, big picture zooming out here for just a second before we get more into training camp, what would you consider, Chris Hagan, to be a successful season for the Indianapolis Colts at this point?