Dez Bryant and....
 

Brandon Marshall, I say sign them both to 1 year deals. We have the cap space and Luck is supposedly coming back to play behind the best Oline he has ever had a chance to play behind yet one of the weakest receiving corps.

By showcasing a healthy Luck this season, hopefully, we will get more love from free agents next year. And by signing both, we double down and hooe just 1 plays up to par. Bryant and Marshall both can play WR1 or WR2, allowing us to move Hilton wherever we want.

Keeping with this strategy of signing 2 veteran players of the same position on 1 yr deals....
We should also beef up our CB and MLB situation with 1 yr deals for....
Adam PacMan Jones and Dominque Rogers-Cromartie at CB, and Brian Cushing and Lawrence Timmons at MLB.

With those 6 players we could be playing in the playoffs and at the end of the season we can resign 2 or 3 of these players if we so chose.

The Oline helps the run and pass game, but if we added another weapon or two at WR.... this not only helps the pass game but the run game as well. Our RBs would be given a lot of space with the secondary having to concetrate on stopping Hilton, Bryant, Marshall, Doyle and Ebron.

Our offense would be top 5 or top 10 with a healthy Luck. And with these 4 defensive players, our defense would be competitive enough for us to win games.

Sounds like a Grigson move, but if we can get them each on 1 or 2 year deals with little guaranteed money in that 2nd yr, thwn we really have nothing to lose, only gain.

I doubt Ballard has even thought about the possibility of doing any of the things you just listed.

Are you bored today Mr. Grigson?

DRC and Timmons on 1 year deals wouldn't be bad ideas, but the rest is just dumb and would steal PT from rookies that need it.

We will develop our own. Only way to do that is to play them. Overpriced players beyond their prime with questionable attitudes, no thanks

We have plenty to lose. Ballard is trying to build the team the right way, not by buying a few wins now. We don't need washed up prima donnas and over the hill guys, this is has been said a rebuild. Develop young guys and mix in a few vets, but hiring every name that was great in the past is not the answer, this isn't Madden.

If mid season we are doing better than expected then MAYBE he can make a move that would get us into the playoffs... Right now just keep building the way you are Ballard

Just having a healthy Luck on the field and Pagano/Chud not on the field gives us 10 more wins...;)

So you're predicting 14-2 this year, then?

I would rather play the rookies, and Hines will be in the slot a lot. TY on the outside.

I imagine the personnel group of Hilton, Cain, Ebron, Mack, Hines will produce some matchup nightmares and exciting plays. So much speed.

you really don't understand how bad the last coaching staff was.....

The 2017 Colts led 9 games at halftime last year. Nine games!

They went 2 - 7 in those nine games.

While some of that might be on the players, the vast majority of that is a coaching staff that failed to make quality 2nd half adjustments, decisions or motivations.

Luck + No Pagano/Chud + healthy Kelly/Hooker/Geathers + 2018 draft class + real offensive system = A ton more wins in 2018 than in 2017.

Heck, Reich over Pags is probably a 4 - 6 win swing all by itself!

We are not SB bound in 2018. But it would not surprise me to see 10 wins and a playoff win as well. I really don't think the 2017 Colts were that far away from being an average NFL team held down by terrible coaching.

Walk Worthy,

Slow down there fluffy, their 6-10 material in 2018, better but still nowhee near winning the AFC South

To be fair, Grigson would sign them to 3 yr deals with mass amounts of guaranteed money. I am saying 1 yr deals.

We have too many rookies that need an entire season of playing time to learn. They would still get plenty of playing time and its not like the WRs wouldnt learn anything playing behind Hilton, Bryant and Marshall.

Unless we are all good with another throw away year and sucking it up for another top 5 draft pick in our rebuild mode. But that just throws another year away for Luck. I was fine with the Suck For Luck campaign and last year's Suck For Nelson campaign.... but 2 years of intentional sucking in a row? Who are we now, the Brown?

The only things we lose by digning players to 1 yr deals are.... 1. Loss of playing time for rookies that arent ready for that much playing time anyway. 2. A better record which means a worse draft position. 3. Loss of a late 4th round compensatory draft pick.

But what we gain in return with all that firepower on offense and depth on defense.... with a healthy Luck? That could be a deep playoff run and added value to lure free agents.

Its funny to me to see fans jump on bandwagon ideals, like free agency is not the way to build a winning team. Bullshit. Yes we would rather fraft our studs but studs do become available in the free agency, this Polian mentality that teams never let go of studs is for the birds. It was then and it is now. Free agency helps put teams over the top. Remember the Patriots before and after Randy Moss? You cant rebuild a team strictly through free agency, tje draft IS more important in this regard.... but the free agency DOES help. And for those that think it doesnt then perhaps we should cut Ebron right now because something MUST be wrong with him according to the Polian mentality.... which there is actually somehing wrong with him, drops.

But in most cases its age or the price tag got to high for their original teams and a younger cheaper talent acquired via the draft is ready to take over their role. There was nothing wrong with Hankins or Sheard was there, and we lwt Hankins go for "scheme fit" even though he was still perhaps our best defensive player. He could habe still played the 0 or 1 Tech, but we let him go and some other team can get a stud for relatively cheap.

Ryan Grant was also a free agent signee and sorry if i dont think he is going to amount to much. Not like Bryant or Marshall would amount to. Luck needs 1 more proven weapon at WR to take the pressure off Hilton and Grant is not a proven weapon that will force teams to shy away from Hilton.

Holy bowling balls of butcher knives
 

This is why we didnt fire Pagano before last season. Ballard knew it was going to be a throw away year and Pagano is the WORST coach at 2nd half adjustments.

Why hire a new coach and set them up for failure their first year? Better to wait a year, make sure you get that 3-13 record, get those high value draft picks and then hire your new coach.

Your opinion.

I think we were better in 2017 as a team that was hampered by substandard offensive system and terrible coaching along with a lack of talent on the O-Line.

I think 2018 is changing a lot of that and I think that we will be a double digit win team.

You don't? That's cool. You have your belief and I have mine.

We will see around New Year's whose is better. Please feel free to save this post to pull up later. If I am wrong, I will freely admit it.

Walk Worthy,

Would signing those guys then make it a non-throw away year? Is it any guarantee that they would teach the rookies something that TY, Reggie, and the staff can’t? I just see little benefit of some one year vets who take reps away, reps that could help build chemistry with their new QB. What purpose is chemistry between Dez and Luck if he is gone in a year.

And there was no intentional sucking. They weren’t intentionally sucking for a fucking guard last year. And if you watched the Luck season you would have realized they were bad, very bad and the were gambling with having a bad backup QB. Then when Polian tried to fix it, he signed the slowest release QB in the league. Peyton was the most hit QB in the league after release, and he had a fast release.

We just installed a new coaching staff and a new offense and defense, we are not going on a deep playoff run with a couple over the hill receivers.

I'm truly hoping you're right, but a rusty Luck, new coaches, new system, unproven young players...

There's gonna be improvement, every week I expect, but it's not going to be instant flip a switch kinda competitive

Dam still hasn’t admitted to how terrible pagano is

We will be better, but I would look towards the second half of the season for them to start to be competitive. That is like a whole college season under their belt and things might start to click a little. The first half of the schedule is brutal, I don't see a lot of wins in there.

Don't forget that a lot of rookies wear down in the latter half of their rookie NFL seasons since they aren't used to the length of the NFL season vs the college season.

This is a learning and development year for a lot of rookies on this team. I'm not too worried about what the record will be.

I think that is now not anywhere near as much of an issue as it was in years past. Especially for teams who are making the National Championship game. They are playing a 12 game regular season slate, then usually a Conference Champion game, followed up with the semi final and then the final, so will be playing 15 competitive games. Sure when you get into the playoffs in the NFL you are adding in extra games and there are also the preseason games, but those are not games that high draft picks will actually see all that much game time in.

So for teams who fail to make the playoffs which is almost 2/3 of the league they will be playing 1 less game than the absolute elite teams in college.

Clearly there are still more games played, and the intensity and standard of overall play is going to be higher in the NFL.

Kareem Hunt sure looked like he wore down the last part of the season.

College is easier than the NFL. Along with the schedule being longer, you also have weeks where you have to play on short rest due to Monday or Thursday games.

I agree with your premise, but also feel the need to point out that college teams play on more days of the week than NFL teams. I've seen college games on pretty much every day of the week, and not just in bowl season.