Okereke was also out for that game.

Taylor was out as well

There is no right way or wrong way to build a team. There is just effective and ineffective. The Bucs went FA at the most two important positions and had a great draft and won again this year. We had our recent golden age primarily through the draft. But it was a FA (a trade specifically) in Booger that pushed that team over the top. I’m ok with having whatever theory a GM supports, as long as it is effective.

Ballard and team are top five drafters, so I’m good with it. Grigson was a horrible drafter, that’s why the core of the team went downhill. But there is nothing wrong with complimenting your roster with FA. Everyone liked the Xavier Rhodes signing right? Denico Autry? Houston? It seems the attitude is we don’t need FA’s except when we actually sign one. Unfortunately pass rushers are highly in demand, they go early in the draft, they go early in FA. And I’m not saying blow our cap on FA’s, no one is saying that. But would it hurt to bring in a young pass rusher in case Turay, Lewis, and Banagu don’t work out? Seems a wise precaution.

As for beefing up the run defense. It’s nice, but besides our division rivals, this is a passing league now. We play with five defensive backs the majority of the time, we play with six defensive backs more than our base 4-3. It’s just the way the league is trending. Having a strong run defense almost belongs 30 years ago than now.

Agree with you on everything but think you underestimate the ability to stop the run. Top team are pass heavy right now. It will change Even if it doesn’t making a team one dimensional because they have no choice is valuable. I’m not saying this is the end all, you also need a pass defense. But having a run defense as good as ours is a net positive.

It’s not a bad thing. Especially when you can make a team one dimensional. But we are not great at stopping the pass. So we are actually making teams attack our weakest area and come playoff time we will have to go through several mobile QBs most likely. I didn’t like how we seemed to regress against the pass as the season wore on.

I actually don’t mind it on offense because most defenses now are pass defense defenses, so we are attacking their weakness. I just would like our own defense more complete.

I am glad you acknowledge that Ballard actually does sign quality free agents. Most critics of his free agency approach ignore those.

I try to be fair. It’s also why it’s maddening to me bc generally he makes good decisions on who to sign. He has been in on a lot of the good performers the last couple years but we get outbid. Landon Collins was obviously too expensive. But Allen Robinson might have been worth trying harder for bc we still have a need there.

The batch this year he signed is arguably worse than who they are replacing. But I prefer to see how they perform before making judgement.

Anyone hear Irsay on JMV show yesterday?

He was asked if the priority for the draft was LT or pass rusher and he said it’s tough like asking colts fans who was more important Tarik Glenn or Dwight freeney.

JMV thinks we could go pass rusher then LT

I disagree

A more fair question would be who is more important between Walter Jones and Dwight Freeney, because Freeney was the best pass rusher in the NFL, Tarik Glenn was great but never in the conversation for best LT. It's also an unfair question because no Edge in this draft projects to be as good as Freeney, while I'd argue Teven Jenkins has a solid chance to be better than Tarik Glenn.

I looked at the 2018 DE class recently, considering what was available, the Colts actually couldn't have done much better going after DEs. The only one I found that was even moderately better in production was Sam Hubbard.