I am losing count of how many consecutive years we've been having discussions like this and I am also as apathetic as I've ever been about this product.

Maybe the Irsay family is actually okay with the mediocrity?

- They haven't hired an experienced HC that has proven they can establish/maintain a culture since Dungy.

- This paper from 2013 appears to argue the average length of a GM's career is 3 years, Why has Ballard been enabled like he has? - https://digitalcommons.law.villanova...4&context=mslj

- Are we finally done with the "Andrew Luck" excuse? It's absurd that there is an argument that Grigson was better at this than Ballard. That is a major, major failure on ownership's part.

- Ownership has also proven they are liars. They lie every year. They'll say whatever they have to say to keep people buying tickets. They are small, petty lies but they add up and we've been consuming these lies for almost a decade now. Empty fucking calories and now we're going brain dead from the caloric deficit.

I will say I am a little relieved shit appears to be falling apart now. Part of me was concerned that a good run here may put the organization in a spot where they afforded Ballard another year.

Right now it looks like Steichen is doing his best to get fired too, which imo offers a better circumstance. We can bring in a new HC & GM, let them deal with AR for a year and see what they want to do, and then let them draft the QB they want to draft if they deem they need to move on.

I definitely this he is talking about the offense, or possibly Blackmon. Possibly refers to coaches not changing the schemes much on defense, but Gus has actually changed it up a bit.

When it went down, my thinking is it WAS Jim. I deduced it couldn't be Ballard- he and AR wear the same handcuffs, one goes down, they both go down.

I didn't think it was Steichen because he would be smart enough to know Flacco was not gonna get us to the PO's.

I decided it was Jim and an insistence he get a PO team on the books NOW to remedy an apathetic fan base.

That said, Ballard has had 8 years, we have never achieved shit with him as GM===FIRE HIM!

Steichen, I had hope, he looked like he might be a super star last year using Minshew and putting up so many points and fighting for the playoffs. But now, this dude has shown he is the functional equivalent of Frank===FIRE HIM!

Jim has put himself in a box. The fans are fucking fed up with this bullshit product. No non wants to watch this current version with Flacco. He could cut both of them loose, and revert back to AR as a misdirection on who made this assinine move.

As someone noted, new GM and coach come in, fresh start for AR and you see what he has. If he isn't the answer, then the new regime is afforded the ability to jettison him and it's all the fault of a shitty GM and shitty coach, and Jim escapes blame.

This is the only logical way forward to regain the potential of AR with the Colts. I don't think there is a good way to repair the damage done between AR and GM / Head Coach (which I think was inflicted by Jim) so cleaning house and starting over with new leadership (and potentially Jim taking that step back and letting his daughter take over decisions) is the best path forward.

If ownership lets either the coaching staff or GM survive another year, it will not fix anything and only extend the pain.

AR could throw a wrench in the works and request to be traded in the off season. Then we could start Bean or someone else young (and not Ehlinger).