Chris Ballard and free agency
 

Not sure I appreciate or like his approach. I know the importance of building a team through the draft, and I understand that Bill Polian ignored free agency with a certain degree of "success."

But, when you compare Polian's record with another Coach/GM who took a slightly different approach...Bill Belichick, the shortcomings of Polian's approach become starkly obvious.

For the last half dozen years of Polian's tenure in Indy, the Colts didn't have much more success in the draft than Ryan Grigson. His teams were perennial playoff contenders, but that was only because of the presence of a handful of players who Polian inherited from Bill Tobin or managed to draft early in his years in Indy. When his drafts began to turn south, his refusal to consider free agency left the team with little more than Peyton and a core group of 5 or 6 aging veterans. When Peyton went down, the team's lack of success in adding talent through the draft was exposed.

While Belichick was adding talent like Randy Moss, Polian waited for second tier, talent deprived free agents like Mike Seidman and Norman LeJeune to slip through the cracks.

I'm not suggesting that Ballard rip Jim Irsay's checkbook from his fingers and spread money around the league like manna. But, when you have $72 Million in cap space, and a desperate need at positions like OL and WR, it seems to me as if you have to make more of a run at someone like Norwell.

Hardly a year goes by when the Patriots roster doesn't include 4 or 5 high quality players that they acquired from other teams. Hardly a year goes by when the Colts have 4 or 5 nondescript players acquired in a similar manner.

It is the reason, I fear, that the Patriots are perennial Super Bowl contenders and the Colts failure to win a 2nd ring for Peyton.

All true, but after winning the SB, BP was given way too much authority to promote Chrissy.

Giving Chris Polian free reign over so many things he wasn't prepared to do was the true downfall of the Polian era.

Ballard is missing opportunities to add talent. The cap isn’t an issue. It is his mindset.

I keep reading about how this is just year two of the rebuild and that we shouldn't expect to be competitive until 2019. Fuck that. We're supposed to wait till Luck is 30 to contend? That's ridiculous. Ballard should've done more for the OL by now.

We don't know that. Ballard may have made comparable offers to several of the FA's, but as has said on here previously, Indy just isn't that attractive right now.

I trust in Ballard, so much more than I trusted in Grigson.

I don’t mind him not throwing crazy money at a lg. No other dude is really a must have right now.

There was better talent at other positions. Ballard failed

Grigson is irrelevant. Not being grigson isn’t a good enough standard to hold Ballard to

Calm the fuck down. Ballard has plenty of time to get this done, between the draft, UDFA's and roster cut downs.

From the contracts I've seen, I wouldn't have gone there either.

Very true. But we don't know who he was bidding for. Indy isn't a FA destination right now.

If Ballard wants to carry it over for 1 year, to prove what we got, then so be it.

Are you satisfied with building this OL with cutdowns and UDFAs? That's more of the same old bullshit. At best we getting one starter from the draft. If he signs the guy from Baltimore and pursues others I'll shut up but until then I'm going to bitch as much as I want. The shit pile OL was a glaring problem that Ballard was aware of from day one and so far his moves have been Zach Banner in the 4th (cut) and Brian Schwenke in FA (cut).

Undrafted free agents and roster cut downs? Seriously? If you're lucky, you stumble onto a Quan Bray every once in awhile.

It's a colossal mystery. You've got one of the top Quarterbacks in the league, a guy who's been physically beaten down since day one in Indy, and your moves to fortify the Offensive Line pale by comparison to Ryan freaking Grigson?

I disagree that Indy's not attractive. How do you define attractive: SB potential? Great QB?, Good coach? It's all about $$. Otherwise Amendola wouldn't have jumped to Miami. And with potential to play with Luck, ought to be enough change that mindset. I trust in Ballard too, maybe he just has different plans.

Norwell was a UDFA.

I know we're all passionate, but you clearly understand from the bold that it's irrational to judge the offseason at this point. Why not just relax and wait for the full returns, particularly on something over which you have zero control?

Sucks missing out on Norwell, but it happens. The big thing that I don't understand is why they bothered to tender Vujnovich.

There's a long way to go in free agency and plenty of talent still available. Many of you are displaying a complete lack of confidence in the team's pro and college scouting. If that's the case, why aren't you calling for Ballard to be fired? Either you're going to trust him to put together the best roster for this team to be competitive or you aren't. So either wait it out or start calling for his head.

I think it’s deeper than football.

Miami weather is > Indianapolis. There is more shit to do in Florida. There’s also no state income tax in Florida.

Yes, yes he was. If you figure that there were about 500 undrafted free agents in his class, that leaves the odds of finding another all pro OL'man by going that route as 500 to 1.

Should we all just wait for everything to just happen and not discuss anything? Why bitch in-game about anything that goes wrong, we don't know the outcome yet.

Weston Richburg is off the market and making about $9M/year from the 49ers. We can probably anticipate that for Jensen, if we sign him.

Wait it out till what? Andrew Luck gets hit another 80 times in 2018? I know that $15 Million a year, with $30 Million guaranteed was a big chunk of change. But, that's what the market said it was. Refusing to ante up has the same quality of a spoiled child holding his breath and pitching a fit because he doesn't like the brand of cereal you're serving up for breakfast.

What has to trouble Jim Irsay is the potential for unrest among the fan base to morph into something uglier. If the line continues to be a clown show, if Andrew Luck goes down, and if the Colts roll to another embarrassing season, unrest begins to translate into unsold season tickets and empty seats.

At the end of last year, you could've bought a ticket on ebay for five bucks. Jim can't afford to have that become the perception of a ticket's value.

There were a lot of silly stories about Luck's unrest circulating, last year. But, if he does go down, again, who's to say that he won't decide to pocket the hundred million the Colts have paid him and fade into retirement in some broadcast booth?

Does that make the situation unsalvageable? Of course not. They could ante up for someone like Justin Pugh, or they could trade down out of number 3 and pick Quentin Nelson. It's still early, but every day that goes by, every free agent who slips to somebody else narrows our options.

Not sure about the wisdom of shelling out $9 Million a year on a Center when we already have one on the roster.

He has also started at guard, if they paid him starter money I assume they'd be signing him as a guard. Or moving Kelly to guard, but that seems unlikely.

Speaking of Jensen, he should be here today:

https://twitter.com/RapSheet/status/974219654859251712

Maybe depth/competition? He and AC were the only colts to take every snap at their position in 2017. With our track record on injuries having a spare toy in the toybox makes sense to me.

You could put a toy out there on the field and it wouldn't be much worse than him.

Lol, Ye of little faith Jesus? We are going to have a grown up offensive scheme finally so I fully expect everyone to look better in the new design. Not saying he will be a stud but I honestly think that it's tough to get a full sense of these guys potential when we had such a predictable scheme. Who knows.....he may still be trash in the new scheme. Time will tell.

They don't need all-pro, necessarily. They just need quality starters.

They could also get guys you've never heard of (maybe the next Andrew Norwell) and scream about them not doing enough until they get on the field and perform well. The bottom line is this is overreaction. You're the one that looks like the spoiled child here, not Ballard. "Waaaaaah, I didn't get the big name free agent I wanted." Well, too fucking bad, clearly the Colts didn't value him as highly as the market. Yesterday was Day 1 of free agency, and if the Polian era taught you anything, it should've been that the big name free agent isn't necessarily going to live up to expectations and the guy you've never heard of just might end up a quality starter.

God damn I hate agreeing with Dam but you guys are being serious pussies right now. Old fashioned "the sky is falling" colts fans.

Right now, the Colts are the 4th best team in the AFC South. We don't have a starting RB, the only healthy WR we have is TY Hilton; the OL is a mess; we don't have a Linebacker who can cover; we're short a Corner or two; and we generated 25 sacks in 2017. The roster is full of holes, and the only help we've signed is being described as a rotational pass rusher.

Yeesh.

Bill Polian never signed an undrafted free agent who made the pro bowl.

You're a fucking idiot and a Ballard cock sucker. See, I can say over-the-top bullshit too.

Now if you're done with the dumb insults, tell me if you're satisfied with the state of the OL on this team.

Jeff Saturday begs to differ

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Jeff Saturday

Right now, the Colts are probably the worst roster in the league.

No, but it's March 15, most of free agency and the draft is still in front of us, not to mention training camp and preseason. It's all still very much a work in progress.

Hoping he has a plan. Maybe he knows of some players that will be released that he has his eye on

Either way between FA and the draft he needs

3 Olineman
DE
3 Lbrs
CB1
RB1
WR2

And I would seriously consider Honey Badger to replace Geathers as a starter and keep Geathers for depth. Those guys go down A LOT!

Wait a minute?!?!? Dam is being the rational one?????

Nobody knows what kind of line we have because of the morons we had running the show last year. Nobody!