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Originally Posted by IndyNorm
I won't go as far as Oldcolt and say that Ballard should have known these guys would turn into turds as soon as they were paid (to be fair Kelly played well for 2 seasons after being paid, so I think his problem(s) is elsewhere), but I think we can all agree in hindsight that Ballard has sunk a shit ton of money into guys he shouldn't have. So much so that it's actually set the franchise back several years.
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I'm really not trying to be a Ballard apologist here, but I need to disagree. The Colts continue to have financial flexibility despite these deals. They have not engaged in type of financial engineering which other teams have, which ends up painting those teams into a corner and setting them back for years. Even where Colts pay these guys tons of money, they usually have an out after a couple years in the event things don't work out.
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Originally Posted by IndyNorm
He also completely destabilized the OL by handing the starting LT job over to Pryor and letting Glow walk for Pinter.
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Certainly there's room for criticism here, though both Pryor and Pinter played much better last year. Teams have to make tough decisions all the time and can't pay everyone, so they took a calculated gamble with Pryor and Pinter which hasn't worked out so far. But this is on Ballard to a large degree, no doubt.
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Originally Posted by IndyNorm
And then there's the fact that it took him 3 off seasons to draft a replacement for AC. Of course we have no idea if Raimann is any good since he doesn't play b/c the coaches/FO have such a hard on for Pryor, but I guess that's another story.
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AC retired 1.5 years ago (the 2021 offseason), with a year remaining on his contract. The Colts brought in a 30-year old former Pro Bowl LT (Eric Fisher) coming off an injury to replace him, and drafted Paye in the 1st round to address a different area of weakness. Fisher didn't work out as well as hoped. Ballard drafted Raimann this off season. He could have done more I suppose, but its not as though he ignored the issue and didn't devote significant resources to it.