In 2023, the Colts had 3 DEs and 4 players with 8+ sacks. After that season, if the team had the opportunity to acquire Micah Parsons for some sort of reasonable cost, would you have wanted them to do it? I would. That doesn't mean the players that the team had didn't play at a starting caliber level, it means that the player who was available was so elite that it would be foolish to pass him up.

BINGO

Draw the line somewhere. That's Roger's fucking fault, not ours.

I really liked his game but fuck that guy.

This is a different argument. We needed Parsons for the same reason we needed Sauce, Ballard has struck out on drafting pass rushers. Once we recognize we aren't going to get players through the draft then I guess building the team thru trades and free agency is the only option left. With the cuphoard as bare as is for us trading for Parsons or signing Hendrickson make sense, but only because of our inability to draft difference makers on defense. So while I agree with you considering the circumstances we are in I want whomever is responsible for putting us in those circumstances gone.

Your argument would hold merit if Jones had been right behind Ward and later Sauce on the depth chart, but he was burried on it behind guys like Edwards, Blackmon, and Lammons. And the fact that you think Rodgers, Thomas, and Jones were home runs is completely laughable.

Probably the most telling stat on Ballard's ability to draft DBs is that in 9 years we've signed a whopping 1 DB who was drafted by him past his rookie contract, and that was a low level contract to Julian Blackmon for 1 year who we let walk the following year. And it's not that we've lost anyone of his drafted DBs in a bidding war as we've lost a total of 0 to high end contracts that we were outbid on or couldn't afford.