I can see that argument, but i would counter it with having to pay the highest amount of money to your QB, means you have to find cheap draft picks and undrafted free agents to bulk out your roster, as you can't sign many others.

Bashir was not a good starter and was replaced before the end of his rookie contract, same with Doss. I'll admit I missed Session.

Basically at this point in time, with Ballard having about 5 less draft classes, the deciding factor right now would whether or not Anthony Richardson becomes a superstar.

That's the effect of having a franchise QB, not good drafting.

Doss was actually let go b/c of injuries and was more productive during his time w/ the Colts than either Willis or Blackmon. Bashir was a little less productive than Willis and Blackmon (at least per game) but still pretty comparable. He was let go b/c we had Doss and Sanders. Here's their stats w/ the Colts (apologies for the format).

GS Tackles Solo Sacks TFL INT FF
Bashir 51 234 165 0 3 5 3
Doss 42 268 205 1 11 7 6
Willis 33 219 161 3.5 7 4 1
Blackmon 46 214 163 1 12 7 2

And it's more than just Peyton vs. AR. Other than Peyton through 6 drafts Polian had drafted a HOF RB, HOF DE, a should be HOF WR, an all-pro DE (and maybe HOFer), and an all-pro TE.

Through 6 drafts Ballard has selected all-pros at OG, OLB, and RB. Q could maybe make the HOF but Leonard won't, and JT probably won't either.

Again, not knocking Ballard. The guy drafts well. But IMO he has a ways to go to be as good as Polian was (Bill, not Chris). It certainly isn't a known fact that Ballard's a better drafter like you claim it is.

Edit: you also need to admit that you forgot Jake Scott.

I wanted to point that out, good call. But I would have framed it more like...

This ^^. Besides comparing a complete vs. incomplete resumé, it makes it really difficult to compare given the QB situation.


@Norm: Good call on some of those overlooked Polian guys. Maybe compared to the 1st-round success rate, but I don't think mid-round stuff is that bad. And that doesn't take into account his undrafted FA (which I know is kind of a separate thing).

How many big time free agents did Polian sign? There weren't that many that i can recall, Booger and then from memory I am struggling to think of anyone else, i have probably missed someone.

He had the QB and obviously a lot of major players on the roster as well, like Harrison, Wayne, James, Freeney, Mathis, Saturday, Glenn etc. But were people complaining about the lack of activity in free agency then? Or did they just accept that the salary cap had already pretty much been spent on keeping our own. Which is a bit like where we are now with the contracts issued to the likes of Pittman, Taylor, Nelson, Kelly, Smith, Franklin, Stewart and Buckner.

As much as i love Bill Polian as a GM, from about 2004 where we drafted
Sanders, there would not be many names on that list that non Colts would remember (McAfee, but not from his play). I am not sure that there is a single player drafted that made a pro bowl? Maybe Addai, Bethea?

Corey Simon might've been the biggest name free agent he ever took a shot on. And he has said that situation did nothing to assuage his apprehension about signing big free agents.

Other than that, you're talking Booger McFarland, Chad Bratzke, maybe Jeff Burris. Never a truly big-time FA that I remember.

Well, that standard probably left to the elite players.

But yes, Addai was a PB, Bethea was a PB for us and SF, and McAfee was and All-Pro who was arguably the best in the league for a while.

And again, it's kind of a separate thing, but there's also the undrafted guys like Saturday, Brackett, Rhodes, Bullitt, Terrence Wilkins.

Yeah, I knew there were some guys Dam had left off, but it's been 20+ years so you can't really blame him too much for that. Another thing is Polian was pretty unlucky on some of his mid round picks from his earlier drafts. EG Green showed that he would have been a really good WR if he could have stayed healthy, Joseph Jefferson always looked pretty good the few and far between times when he was healthy, and of course there was the Brandon Burlsworth tragedy :( I realize all GMs have this happen though, which obviously includes Ballard.

Actually Booger was an in season trade, which we probably wouldn't have won the SB if we wouldn't have made it. I had forgotten about Burris.

Polian went pretty heavy in FA in '99. Bratzke was a big FA signing and was one of the top FAs that year. He also gave some relatively big contracts to Cornelius Bennett and Chad Cota. There were some other guys he signed as well, but names escape me as it's been 25 years.

After that Polian signed some mid level guys (Montae Reagor comes to mind), but yeah Corey Simon was really the only big name FA. Even though long term it didn't work out it was still worth taking the shot and worked out in the short term IMO. Unfortunately for us the season got derailed and then Simon decided to sit on his ass and eat twinkies all offseason.

Oh we complained back then too. Not as much though if I can recall, especially during our peak. I think the difference was that (at least in our peak) we didn't have the gaping holes in the roster coupled w/ entering FA with shit tons of cap space under Polian like we have had the past few years under Ballard. Granted a lot of that cap space has gone towards re-signing our own, but I think seeing that number adds to the frustration.

As Chaos mentioned Addai, Bethea, and McAfee were all pro bowlers. I would have sworn that Garcon was as well after moving on, but it turns out he wasn't. He did lead the league in receptions w/ 113 for 1,300 yards one year.

Some good post '04 picks were obviously Constanzo, both Kelvin Hayden and Marlin Jackson in '05 who were both really good CBs that had injuries derail their careers. The fact that Marlin Jackson made probably the biggest play in Indy Colts history makes him a good pick just for that IMO. Hell people always bash the Anthony Gonzalez pick, but he was actually pretty productive his first 2 seasons. Then he had the freak knee injury during the season opener in '09 that pretty much ended his career.