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Colts settle on Clyde Christensen as O-coordinator

INDIANAPOLIS — The Indianapolis Colts used one succession plan to replace Tony Dungy. Now, new coach Jim Caldwell is implementing his own succession plan to complete his staff.

Team president Bill Polian told an Indianapolis radio station Friday that assistant head coach Clyde Christensen will become the new offensive coordinator and former Seahawks tight end Pete Metzelaars will take over as offensive line coach following the retirements of Tom Moore and Howard Mudd.

"The main cogs in terms of operating the program are in place, have been in place and we're prepared to do this," Polian told 1070-The Fan during a morning radio program. "It does not come as a shock to us. It's just a transition that we would rather not have made, but we knew full well that it was likely we were going to have to."

The team has made no official announcement about the changes, and Polian did not respond to an interview request from The Associated Press.

Shuffling staff members in May is unusual, but when league owners approved changes to the coaches' pension plan earlier this year, the 67-year-old Mudd and 70-year-old Moore were almost forced into retiring. Otherwise, they would have lost some of their retirement benefits.

The retirements are the latest in a line of offseason changes, but these two moves could have the most dramatic effect on the Colts' offense.

Moore has been the only offensive coordinator three-time MVP Peyton Manning ever played for in the NFL, and has a long history of coaching Hall of Fame-caliber players and directing productive NFL offenses.

Both coaches joined the Colts in 1998, Manning's rookie season.

Notes

• Former NFL star Bruce Smith has been charged with drunken driving in Virginia Beach.

Smith has two previous DUI arrests, but the first charge in 1997 was dismissed and he was acquitted in 2003.

• The NFL's 2009 salary cap will be nearly $12 million more than last season after a final adjustment brought the total to $128 million.

The salary cap is technically $123 million for 2009, an increase of about $7 million from last season, as set out in the collective bargaining agreement.

About $4 million in cap room was added when a "cash-adjustment mechanism" was triggered after spending on players fell below 59.5 percent of the league's total revenue in 2008.

• The Washington Redskins won another legal victory in a 17-year fight with a group of American Indians who contend the football team's trademark is racially offensive.

The U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington upheld the lower court's decision in favor of the football team on a legal technicality. The court agreed the seven Native Americans waited too long to challenge the trademark first issued in 1967.

By The Associated Press