Ed Johnson on Tuesday made his first public statements since re-signing with the Indianapolis Colts, and although he rightfully said the expected, he provided a bit of insight.

Most interesting:

The relationship he has with Colts Head Coach Jim Caldwell.

Johnson, who started 16 games for the Colts at defensive tackle as an undrafted rookie in 2007, was released last September after an arrest for marijuana possession. The Colts re-signed him shortly after the 2009 NFL Draft, a move that turns the tackle position into a potential strength next season.

Johnson:

I’m very grateful. I’m just happy to have another chance and happy to be back. I’m just feeling truly blessed right now.

And while that’s what you’d expect to hear, here’s what Caldwell — who coached under Joe Paterno at Penn State, where Johnson played collegiately — said of Johnson:

Ed is a guy who I think has a big heart. He loves this team. He certainly loves the guys he plays with. He’s thankful to be back, to have an opportunity to be back. I certainly do sense the remorse, and the biggest thing is he has to look from this point forward and continue to press on, which he’s doing and do the things that are going to make him better in all areas of his life.

Johnson, when asked Tuesday how the return to the Colts came about, said he developed a relationship with Caldwell $during his first tenure with the team. It was a relationship Johnson said didn’t end when he left the team. Johnson:

I had been talking to Coach Caldwell on and off since I’d left. He was staying in contact with me and I was staying in contact with him. We already had a relationship when I was here, so he was just checking on me to see how I was doing.

Here’s what four-time Pro Bowl DE Dwight Freeney had to say about Johnson on Tuesday:

I love Ed. He’s our guy. Not everybody does everything right all the time and some people make mistakes. He understands the mistakes he’s made and we’ll try to give him a second chance. Ed has a lot of potential to be great. He had some off-the-field issues and he’s straightened those things out. He should be good.

From everything I understand, that’s a heartfelt statement from Freeney that is reflective of the locker room. Johnson was a popular guy and there was a feeling that his transgression — while not excusable — was not so awful that he didn’t deserve a second chance.

Caldwell was asked if Johnson had to re-earn his place as a starter, and if the circumstances around his release would influence how the Colts felt about putting him in the starting lineup:

When you bring someone back like Ed has come back, you actually start at Ground Zero. You say, ‘Hey, listen, let’s go from this point forward’ and obviously deal with that issue as opposed to looking at what happened previously. My high school coach used to always say, ‘Cream will always rise to the top.’ At tome point in time, if he’s good enough and if he performs well enough, he’ll take his rightful position.

Johnson:

I think I have to prove myself all over again. I’m trying to do that as good as I can with my teammates and my coaches. The only way I can do that is the same way I did the first time – just go hard and keep working hard and everything will work itself out.

When discussing Johnson recently, Caldwell mentioned changes Johnson had made in his life that showed the Colts he was ready to return. Johnson was asked about those changes:

I learned a lot. I learned I can’t do a lot of the things I used to do. I learned I have to change a lot of things in my personal life. It wasn’t a good situation that happened, but I think it was a good thing that it happened to me when it did to help me later on in life. I learned a lot. I learned I can’t do a lot of things I used to do. I learned that I have to change a lot of things in my personal life. It wasn’t a good situation to happen, but I think it was a good thing to happen to me, to help me later on in life to learn these things now rather than learn them later on when they could cost me more. . . . Mostly like I said, I changed some of my behaviors, changed some of the people around me, changed some of the things I was doing. Mostly, it was just part of growing up and maturing.

The obvious conclusion to draw from all of this is that, yes, Johnson had to say these things and they’re easy to say, but not as easy to do. All true, but everything you hear about Johnson is he’s more about having made bad decisions than he is a bad kid, while there’s no guarantee he won’t err again, there’s no harm in giving him a chance.