[IndyNorm]

Ballard's invested 3 2nd round picks in WR (Campbell, Pittman, Pierce), and it's starting to look like all 3 of them will be valuable contributors for the Colts moving forward, provided they re-sign Campbell, which I think they should.

I forgot about Campbell. Still 3 2nd round picks in 6 years isn't much investment in such a critical position. I'm on the fence w/ re-signing Campbell. As long as he comes cheap we probably should, but Ballard needs to hedge and not just trust that he's going to stay healthy. I doubt he will though b/c Ballard doesn't really hedge his bets, which is a huge weakness of his.

Also, not sold on Pierce. He pretty much disappeared in the 2nd half of the season, but that could be the whole coaching dumpster fire at fault. Also, even when he was productive early in the season he wasn't getting much (if any) separation. I think he'll be ok, but it's just concerning IMO.

After Raimann was a Top 10 OT in football for the second half of last season in his third year of playing football at any level, I doubt he's going to regress to being a bad player.

I tend to agree. He should progress and not regress, but Ballard needs to bring in quality depth just in case (again something that he's bad at). At the very least a decent swing OT to hedge injuries.

Also, interestingly, the '19 trade down that you brought up also serves to illustrate Ballard's weakness at evaluating DE talent. I wanted Montez Sweat that year, didn't think he'd be there at 26. I remember my heart leaping up when Sweat fell to 26, then being completely deflated when I saw the trade down with the Commies, who then drafted Sweat, who has been a quality starter and pass rusher for them. Ironically, that 34th pick that was acquired in the trade down was used to select Rock Ya-Sin, who was eventually traded for Yannick Ngakoue, so in the end, the Colts did end up with a pass rusher from that 26th pick.

In hindsight we should have taken Sweat, but wasn't there a lot of concern w/ a heart condition that he had? If so then I don't think you can blame Ballard for passing on him there.

I'm very confident that the Colts have 2 high quality starters from the 2022 draft going forward in Bernhard Raimann and Rodney Thomas II. A good Polian draft produced 3 starters, so for Ballard's 2022 draft to be better than a good Polian draft, and therefore my statement to be right, I need two of Alec Pierce, Jelani Woods, and Nick Cross to develop into at least decent starters, which I don't view as all that unlikely.

Still you're counting your chickens before the hatch. You may be right about the overall contributors, but I don't see any all pro, high end talent types in the draft. Most Polian drafts had at least 1 if not 2 of those type of players.