All GMs drop the ball some times. The almighty Polian that some folks here have knighted, dropped the ball when he traded Faulk for a song and then had to draft his equal in Edge. He could have kept Faulk a HOFer and traded the Edge pick to the Saints for every fucking draft pick they had that year. Adding that to their own, they would have been stacked for years.

Fuckin Scioli and Peterson for Marshall Faulk

Yes, and the Colts could've traded away the Luck pick for 5 1s, kept Peyton, and drafted Russell Wilson, but nobody but me saw that possibility.

Faulk was unhappy, and Edgerrin was just as good if not better at the time. Faulk would've walked in free agency, instead we got 7 years of James.

Peyton was due 18 million dollar roster bonus before it was certain his neck would ever allow him to be Peyton again. So, it was risky.

Faulk wasn't unhappy, he just wanted his contract renegotiated. Polian said nobody renegotiates on my watch.

Yes, the risk was Peyton falters and you have a rookie superstar on a rookie deal with 5 more first round picks.

holy shit i forgot about scioli

just look at this clown

It's just going to get worse the farther we stink. Hell, even I'm not immune to it.

???

I keep hearing that the build strategy is old, mostly from young fans who grew up with the 2000 Colts. The problem with the “modern build” strategy is that it’s dependent on finding a generational QB which is the hardest thing to do in sports. You either have to have the number one pick in the draft with one available that year (Burrow, Lawrence) or get extremely lucky in a deep QB draft class (Allen, Mahomes). And there are more misses at QB than hits for sure. Also young people tend to leave out we didn’t win the SB till we finally solidified the defensive line with a DT, Booger. And the running game came alive to take pressure off the passing game. Those Colts teams consistently got beat by Pat and Steeler teams who were more complete with investment in their lines.

People think Ballard just wants to make a running team with strong guards and a defense with strong DTs. That’s not true. He just happened to hit on an all-pro guard and an all-pro LB wary in his tenure bc he is good at drafting. He wants a complete team bc he thinks you win championships that way, but you still need a QB and he’s trying to find one.

A lot of this anti Ballard stuff I hear out of the radio guys on 1075. They don’t like him and think he is “smug.” So they go on these rants about him, but it’s really because they just don’t get along with him. I personally didn’t think he was bad in the interviews I listened to, I felt like they were pushing their opinion as if they had some say in the matter. When you’re a sports reporter and think you know more than the people on the team. But news flash, Polian was a huge dick, Grigson was a huge dick, it doesn’t matter, as long as they do their job. Plus McAfree seems to think he’s ok so I tend to think it’s the radio guys being sensitive. Also Dakich is an dick.