Rodney Harrison has been a great hire for NBC. They were not looking for neutrality in journalism when they hired him. They wanted a lightning rod.

Kicking off a conference call with the media, Harrison — who spoke along with fellow studio analyst Tony Dungy, play-by-play announcer Al Michaels and Sunday Night Football producer Fed Gaudelli — said he hoped the Patriots would "kick some butt" this weekend over the Colts. How's that for neutral?

But when Harrison said he thought the Colts' secondary was in dire straits, I think he did so as a football analyst not just a former Patriots. Check out his unabridged comments:

"I look at a Colts secondary that's in trouble. You lose Bob Sanders, which is not a big surprise for those guys because he's missed a lot of time, but losing Marlon Jackson and Calvin Hayden. Two losses for them, especially Marlon Jackson. He's a guy who shows up a lot in the run game. Very physical, very aggressive cornerback who can play corner, safety, nickel back, dime back, cover a tight end, a guy that's very versatile. If you're Tom Brady and the Patriots you've got to look to really exploit that secondary."

Dungy was more diplomatic (shocker there) in his analysis of the game and the Indy secondary, but he did say that he would take Peyton Manning over Tom Brady as his quarterback, mostly because of their time together and knowing what Manning brought to the table. Dungy's comments:

"I've been with Peyton Manning for seven years, I've seen him prepare and I've seen what he does and how he's lead our team. There is no other quarterback that I would want, and I might see it differently if I had been with Tom Brady for seven years, but that's the experience I had and I can't imagine anybody running the offense and doing as much as Peyton does for the Colts."

We'll have more tomorrow from this interesting conversation that was dominated by Dungy and Harrison but was very interesting from start to finish.