True.

Alas, we only have young, slow LBs to replace him with.

#ThanksGrigson

Cheers,

had to see that coming

Really? This one was a no-brainer. I would've been shocked if they didn't make this move.

I think the mild "surprise" is coming because none of us really know what to make of Ballard yet. Yes, we've all heard that he's very smart and very well respected, but his retaining of Pagano has probably led to a perception that he's a bit afraid to drop the hammer.

If he goes on a Grigson-like purge of the roster, then I'll certainly take notice.

Grigson wasn't afraid to rid the roster of guys that were no longer useful. Off the top of my head, I can't think of a guy from the 2011 roster that Grigson cut that went on to do great things. We were quite talent deprived then. Unfortunately, Grigson sucked at acquiring talent too, so we're yet again talent deprived and back where we started.

But yes, with Ballard having a reputation for both being smart AND nice and at least his initial hesitancy to dump Pagano and with only one cut to his name thus far, how many guys get cut might be a major hint as to what Ballard's MO will be.

And, the Colts save another $5M by cutting Arthur Jones, right?

I would've thought AJ was in front of DQ on the chopping block.

$5.150m.

My only guesses at this point are:

A) He has been reviewing LB first since he knows that is a total disaster and other parts of the defense are coming next.

B) Jones showed, in at least three games in 2016 where he had 6/6/8 tackles that he has the ability to be an impact player. He just does not have the health and/or coaching to do that on a consistent basis.

I still think he will be cut. It may not come until after our initial free agency signings to see if we can get someone better for that same $5.150m a year.

Cheers,

Ever hear of a guy named Dwight Freeney?

He played on the 2012 team.

I'm talking about guys from the 2011 team that were on the chopping block for Grigson's great purge in his first couple of months. Brackett, Bullitt, Addai, Clark, Gonzalez, etc. There were A LOT of Polian guys that were on that team that either never played another down or had very limited chances elsewhere.

I thought AJ was helpful when he played, teamed up with Langford, but it's been so few and far between and the Colts statements seemed so bleak talking about him. He's already got paid so I guess it's just a matter of whether or not Ballard thinks he's healthy and can stand up for a season.

With DQ gone, looks like we'll be experimenting with a 6-1 defense next year ;)

I always hated this move by Grigson / he probably never even reached out to him ...I think letting Freeney walk at first was fine and test FA, but Grigs should've stayed in contact with him. It's a shame that Bruce Arians saw the value.

We should've designed our D with the good players the Colts already had in hand instead of trying to reinvent everything.