Quote:
Originally Posted by sherck
(Post 87452)
I think the major rub on Ballard is the HUGE amount of cap space we are sitting on doing nothing. Many fans wanted more of it spent on free agents.
I get it. I also get what Ballard is trying to do in establishing an identity before dropping a ton of cash on "high level" performers. We have signed 4 guys (2 per year) so far to "starter level" contracts (over $5m a year) and one more at $5m a year (Grant).
Of those four over $5m (Hankins, Sheard, Ebron, Autry), Hankins is the only one who has not worked out so far. Sheard and Ebron are delivering starter level performance and so has Autry when heathy.
I fully expect 2019 to be a bit different assuming that this trend continues for the rest of the season of a rising defense of talent (Leonard, Walker, Turay, Hunt, Hooker) and an offense that re-estabilishes itself as a top ten offense.
Those two things happen by the end of 2018, I fully expect the checkbook to be opened in 2019 with us bidding aggresively on veterans who will fit the culture and another draft class hopefully like 2018.
Anyway, I am glad Ballard is here and I am good with his plan. However, if he sits on $50m of cap space in 2019, my opinion will probably start turning.
Walk Worthy,
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I certainly understand the gut-level feeling that Ballard missed an opportunity by not using the Colts available cap space - I mean, he had something like $50 million, why didn't he spend it? - but I don't think this thinking holds up to further scrutiny.
First, and as I’ve mentioned in many prior posts, it’s important to remember that the cap space hasn’t disappeared, so in that sense we haven’t lost any opportunities. The Colts will be free to use this cap space in the future, and will now have a competitive advantage over other teams since we have more that everyone else. So I think much of the fan frustration comes from the fact that people see other teams signing big name free agents, and get impatient want something to happen NOW without thinking long term. It’s fun to sign free agents!
One of great things about Ballard, at least in my view, is his resistance to these types of temptations. Generally speaking, you usually don’t get very far just following the herd – you need to find and exploit inefficiencies in the system (i.e. Moneyball) to get ahead. The inefficiency Ballard seems to have identified is financial discipline/wasting cap space. Here’s a quote he provided back in March at the outset of free agency:
“Financial discipline in this league, you don’t see that like you used to. I think it’s a good thing to have. Because what happens is these guys are re-tooling the roster every two years. You are signing all these free agents and then two years from now, you are seeing them all get cut and then they are back on the street again.”
Grigson seemed to have a more traditional view – aggressively add talent via free agency to maintain your competitiveness. I’m not sure he started this way, but I think he was a victim of his own early success, and bought in to his own press clippings about how great he was after the Luck/Hilton draft. Then, to try to maintain his early image, he got caught in the cycle of adding a bunch of older vets (like Cherilus, Landry, Donald Thomas, Heyward-Bey, Art Jones, Gore, Johnson). The double whammy was that his college talent evaluation was deficient after the Luck/Hilton draft (see. Werner, Dorsett, Green, D'Joun Smith, Trent Richardson trade, etc.). Eventually the whole thing collapsed on him. If Ballard stays true to his vision I don’t think that kind of thing will happen here.
The bottom line is it’s not all that different from fantasy football in the sense that every team has a set amount of money to spend, and the goal is to make the most of it. In this context, almost all good QBs are underpaid given their enormous influence on the outcome of games, so when you have one like Luck you keep them and you’ll automatically have a competitive advantage over most other teams. You can then go about assembling the rest of the team with your remaining cap space. Typically, if you sign a bunch of high end free agents you’ll quickly run out of cap space, just like in fantasy football.
So to succeed you need to develop your own players for at least two reasons: (1) rookie contracts are really good deals for teams and leave you with extra cap space to work with elsewhere, and (2) you usually can’t get elite players through free agency because their teams usually sign them before they hit the market, so you have to develop them internally. What’s left in free agency is a bunch of good players who demand to be paid like great players, a few disgruntled players, or formerly good players who are on the downside of their careers. Generally speaking, you don’t get great value with these type of players, which is why I think Ballard has referred to free agency as “fool’s gold.” The salary cap provides enough room to sign several of these players, but lots of teams overdo it thinking it can serve as a substitute for developing their own talent. It isn’t. Ballard views free agency as a supplement to home grown talent, but not a replacement. So he is focused on developing a group of young (and cheap) players, and once this is established will then look at free agency to add to those home grown players to put the Colts over the top. This whole strategy depends, of course, on his skill in drafting good players.
Related to this thinking, spending big on free agency is inconsistent with his plan to establish a team culture first. To me, this approach is more convincing on the defensive side of the ball, where we are primarily relying upon younger players. I think the culture on offense should mostly be already there given the established presence of vets like Luck, Hilton and Castonzo (I can’t speak to how much the culture of offense bleeds to the defense – I guess this would depend upon how much they interact on a daily basis). More from Ballard on this last March:
"We have to get some roster continuity with 10-to-12 players that are going to be Colts for a long time. Then you feel better about dipping into free agency and getting a guy. Not just good players, they need to be able to influence the locker room with their character. A culture needs to be built. A coach can do so much, but the players in that locker room build the culture that you want, with their work ethic, with the standards that they set. We have to get more players like that in our locker room."
So, bottom line, I understand the frustration with Ballard’s lack of spending on free agency to this point, and the desire for the immediate gratification that comes with it. However, I think patience will be rewarded and Ballard’s focus on a long term, sustainable approach will serve us well.
By the way, I did NOT intend this post to be so long, so I apologize.
