Chris Ballard…a quasi honest assessment.
 

There is, today, a certain irrational segment of the fan base who want to fire Ballard, ditch Steichen, burn the castle to the ground and start over.

To them, I quote General McAuliffe at the Battle Of The Bulge and say: “Nuts.”

I am not suggesting that Ballard is perfect, that he hasn’t made mistakes. Every GM does.

He wasted his first draft on players that fit the scheme of a head coach who would soon be gone.

For far too long, he listened to the siren song of Frank Reich who whispered in his ear that he could work wonders with reclamation projects at the most important position in sports.

And, for whatever reason, perhaps due to a parsimonious owner, he hasn’t been aggressive in attacking free agency.

Despite all that, he has succeeded in building a roster that I believe is only a few pieces shy of competing in the upper echelons of the AFC. Injuries and the not unexpected growing pains of Anthony Richardson have obscured that reality.

From the back of the depth chart to the front, the Colts are well stocked.

Juju Brents, Jaylon Jones, and Kenny Moore can all play.

Blackmon and Cross are very good Safeties, but one of them seems to be playing out of position.

At Linebacker, Speed and Franklin would surely benefit from the presence of Darrius Leonard or, even, Bobby Okereke, who is excelling in New York. But let’s not overlook the fact that, in his time with the Colts, Ballard recognized and added one player who could have gone to the Hall of Fame and another who might become a pro bowl fixture

At DT, Buckner is elite and Stewart is more than stout.

Latu is beginning to look like the DE we expected. Paye, Lewis, and Odeyingbo have flashes; and we have a 10-12 sack guy sitting in the locker room, nursing a season ending injury.

When healthy, there isn’t a better Offensive Line in the league.

Pittman is one step short of elite; Downs might be; Pierce is a premiere deep threat; and Mitchell intrigues.

Tight End is a black hole that leaves us perpetually waiting for Woods.

But, Jonathan Taylor is one of the most dynamic runners in the game.

Anthony Richardson is Anthony Richardson, a giant ball of potential wrapped up in Christmas paper, sitting under our tree with a bow of inexperience stuck to him.

This year has been frustrating. I get it. We all want to get into the playoffs, crack heads, and flex our muscles. But, this was never going to be that year. This was a year when we nurtured and developed a young Quarterback, evaluated the Corners, gave an extremely talented draftee at DE a chance to get his toe wet, and did the same on the other side of the line with AD Mitchell.

This is a season where you find the holes, an offseason when you plug them.

If Richardson fails and the team falls apart around him in 2025, we will surely have a conversation about Ballard in 12 months.

Watching the GB/MIA game on Thanksgiving, I heard one of the commentators making the point that GB has developed this playoff team with the strategy of drafting and developing their talent instead of looking to free agency for solutions. He followed that by saying they were doing it the right way. It seems Ballard is using the same strategy, and is likely a year away from being a serious contender, as long as AR develops like I think he can possibly do.

So his mistakes aren’t his fault, they are Pagano’s, Reich’s, and Irsay’s. And after 8 years he has team that, if things go right, could compete next year. One of the things that must go right is him doing something he has never shown the ability to do - plug the holes in the roster. Sounds like the same shit I’ve heard for 8 years. At some point you are what your record says you are. Guy is fucking Teflon.

When you draft a Quarterback with less than a dozen starts in college and hand him the reins of your team, you don’t expect excellence. You expect to go through some tough times. I don’t understand why people want to blame Ballard for that.

When Bill Polian drafted Peyton, the first year under the new Quarterback was brutal. The Colts went 3-13. Josh Allen took his first Bills team to a 5-11 record. Joe Burrow went 2-7. Jim Kelly went 4-12. John Elway 4-6.

When I look at the job that Ballard’s done, I ask myself how Andrew Luck with a couple of seasons under his belt would have done with the same talent? How many games would he have won playing behind a great Offensive Line, handing the ball off to Jonathan Taylor, throwing to the likes of Pittman, Downs and Pierce?

The answer I get brightens my day. The answer is that they go toe to toe with any team in the league. The answer is that the odds are pretty good Jim Irsay has another Lombardi Trophy for his man den come the first of February.

I agree with all of this except the O-line. Nelson is one of the five or six best guards in the league, still. Smith is below average, and gets too many stupid, avoidable penalties. RG could be average with Fries. Bortellini, or however it's spelled, is an upgrade at what they've had at Center the past few years, and Raimann is average (with growth potential). The only one above league average is Nelson, and he may be on the downside of his career already.

All the rest though, spot on. And I'm excited about Mitchell's potential, that he has flashed more and more recently.

8 years

2 PO appearances

Zero Division Titles

12 QB's

And we are sitting here 12 games into this season, 2 games below .500 and we're all living on the false hopium we will string together 5 straight wins- or at least 4 of the next 5, to just squeak into the POs- and EVERY FUCKING ONE of us KNOW that isn't happening with this team!

By any objectionable standard of measurement- which that's what this is, the NFL comes down to the W and L columns, period, by that standard that EVERY other team / GM gets measured by- Chris Ballard SUCKS!

Fuck Chris Ballard

I don’t blame Ballard for AR and in fact if he busts I won’t necessarily blame him for that. I blame him for having 7 straight fucking years or “maybe we’ll try next year” then not trying. I blame him for the erosion of fan support, both mine and everyone else’s. I seriously debated on letting my season tickets go. Why? Because I don’t believe in this team or what it is doing. Why would I? Their GM has routinely shown he doesn’t believe in them. He’s not once said this is our year, we are going to make some noise. Not fucking once. It’s always maybe next year, exactly what you wrote. It won’t be next year though. I mean will the team be better? Maybe, probably. But he’s not going to plug holes with anything other than rookies. We’ve seen it - position by position, year after year. It’s great that I feel good about the WR position now, 5 years later. But this team would have a playoff win if he didn’t sign Rivers AND still not believe in the team. It’s constant. That season of signing Rivers and then doing jack shit with the rest of the roster is Ballard. It’s fundamentally who he is. And it will constantly lead to less than great results. Less than the sum of the parts.

The man is a decent to pretty good talent evaluator, but he doesn’t know how to build a winning team. His philosophy sucks and this isn’t hindsight, I was saying it back when he had Luck. His philosophy is from a different era of football. Shit changes too quickly now. Hell his best ever draft pick is already retired.

And your idea about putting Luck under center for this team doesn’t work. With Luck he never gets the high draft picks to be able to assemble the current mediocre team. Even evaluating his drafting ability is somewhat skewed because most GMs wouldn’t get by with his year after year record. Not to mention he doesn’t even get the chance to draft AR if it wasn’t for Irsay tanking the season. He is the person that has kept the team from attempting to solve the QB situation permanently for several years while benefiting from his failure to do so. He’s had plenty enough opportunity to put his plan into action and we’ve seen the results. He is who his record says he his.

Should have been fired after Wentz and then Ryan, no GM should be able to survive those fuck ups!

Those were Reich guys.

That's a cop out!