[Dam8610]

Originally Posted by Oldcolt

Dam, not sure how I felt about Grigson has anything to do with how I feel about Ballard. I am not upset because of any one QB I think he should have gotten. He just has not gotten anyone. Nine years is enough to find at least one competent QB. As far as excuses for why you lose, every loser has a ton of them. What ifs abound with teams like ours.

Because firing Ballard isn't the end. He has to be replaced. He could be replaced by a talentless hack that Lucks into a franchise QB and gets him killed to the point that said franchise QB retires because of his injury history.

There haven't been many opportunities to add a franchise QB since Luck's retirement.

Current starters drafted 2020 or later: Joe Burrow, Tua Tagovailoa, Justin Herbert, Jordan Love, Jalen Hurts, Trevor Lawrence, Justin Fields, Brock Purdy, Bryce Young, C.J. Stroud, Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, Drake Maye, Michael Penix Jr., J.J. McCarthy, Bo Nix, Cam Ward

Eliminating the ones that were drafted before the Colts had a pick, we are left with: Jalen Hurts, Brock Purdy

Current starters acquired via trade or free agency since 2020: Matthew Stafford, Jared Goff, Baker Mayfield, Geno Smith, Sam Darnold

So, realistically, the current starting QBs the Colts had the opportunity to acquire were: Jalen Hurts, Matthew Stafford, Jared Goff, Baker Mayfield, Brock Purdy, Geno Smith, and Sam Darnold

Jalen Hurts: The Eagles sat Hurts for the better part of a year, and that was after he had over 40 college starts. Given what happened with AR, do we think the Colts would have done the same, or that he would have turned out to be as good here?

Matthew Stafford: Many Colts fans wanted him, but three 1s was far too high a price for Stafford.

Jared Goff: Offloaded in the Stafford trade, was thought to be on his way out of the league at the time he was traded. I will say this was an opportunity missed, but it may have been a completely unknown opportunity to the FO.

Baker Mayfield: Also thought to be on his way out of the league when he was a free agent, he appeared to be a bridge signing for the Bucs after Brady retired.

Brock Purdy: The whole league missed on him, including the 49ers, who luckily stumbled into him.

Geno Smith: Was considered a bust as a free agent and an aging league average starting QB when traded to the Raiders this offseason.

Sam Darnold: Started for two different teams and performed horribly before having a career renaissance under Kevin O'Connell last year.

MAYBE three of those guys (Goff, Mayfield, Purdy) would've been as successful with the Colts, and it's questionable for each. What this exercise tells me more than anything is that being patient with AR is the right move since the Colts chose to draft him instead of trading up for Stroud.

Originally Posted by rm1369

As I pointed out, the three other teams bottomed out and then won the division in less time the Ballard as been GM. The team Ballard inherited was not significantly worse than those teams. Believing they were is the result of the same outcome bias Chaos is accusing people of using.

Is Ballard a better GM than Grigson. Yes, maybe? IMO Grigson has the correct philosophy for the modern NFL, Ballard’s philosophy is antiquated. Grigson’s primary issue was that he sucked at a talent evaluator. In that regard, Ballard is certainly superior, no argument. But I don’t believe Ballard will ever win a SB, and I believe that even if he had Luck at QB. Why? Because he’s too risk adverse to ever make the moves to help his team peak. Ballard supporters always talk out of both sides of their mouths on this point. They claim that he’s not been aggressive only because he hasn’t had the QB. They say he didn’t move up to get the QB because it was too risky without drafting high. Then they defend his decisions that kept the team from bottoming out and drafting high. Irsay’s decision is the only reason the team was in a position to draft AR.

Rivers wasn’t a successful experiment, he was an example of Ballard’s failed philosophy. I don’t know how anyone can defend signing rivers and not going all in. He was a 1-2 yr QB max. Either swing for a deep run or don’t sign him.

Everyone talks about how talented the team has been over this run, but every single year it has had some aspect that is bottom of the league that he just does nothing with. Of course pointing that out does no good because it gets in to what I mentioned before - “why solve CB (or DE or TE, or LT, etc) when the team doesn’t have a QB…” And yes the DC sucked,but how was he ever brought here? Ballard.

I see plenty of differences between KC and Ballard. How did they draft Mahomes? They made a risky move and went and got him. The exact thing Ballard has not done for a QB, always stating it was too risky. There are plenty of other things they have done that are completely unlike Ballard.

Each of those teams has drafted a QB at 1 or 2 in that time as well. That makes a huge difference. If the Colts had Joe Burrow, C.J. Stroud, Caleb Williams, or Jayden Daniels, they'd be running away with this division every year.

Ballard is unquestionably a better talent evaluator than Grigson, and I would wholeheartedly disagree with the idea that "Try to cover talent evaluation and drafting deficiencies by throwing a bunch of money around in free agency" is a winning roster building philosophy in the modern NFL.

Rivers got the Colts to the playoffs and retired a year earlier than expected. His time here was a success (and I hate Rivers, so I don't like admitting that), it was just shorter than expected. As someone else pointed out, I think Wentz could've been a success had he not been an idiot and gotten the COVID vaccine. Everyone here knows I would've traded whatever it took to get to 1 and draft Stroud, but AR isn't necessarily done. Again, if you get rid of Ballard, you have to replace him. I know I would be pissed if 5 years from now, we're talking about how another Ryan Grigson type has destroyed the team while we watch top 10 QB AR start for the Rams or Raiders or Seahawks.

The team has had a lot of talent with no QB, it's a truth that anyone who knows football can recognize. You don't get to near .500 with bad QB play if your roster sucks. Those teams typically pick 1 or 2. The 2011 Colts earned the #1 pick because the roster around Manning was bad or aging, and Manning got hurt. Not fixing the CB position in 2023 makes sense because it allowed for a lot of the players the Colts just drafted to get PT, which allowed Jaylon Jones to develop into a starter, and in 2024, Ballard found a starter off the street in Womack. I agree that Matt Pryor as starting LT was a terrible decision, I won't defend that, but you can find bad decisions on any GM's resume. As for hiring Bradley, was that Ballard’s pick, or Reich's? That said, firing Reich was an opportunity to fire Bradley that Ballard didn't take.

I see two major differences between Veach and Ballard as team builders:

1) The Chiefs lucked into a franchise QB being available at 10 and traded up to get him. They also sat him for the first year and he credits that for a great deal.of his NFL success.

2) Veach was able to trade Tyreek Hill for an extra half of a draft in 2022 and 2 extra picks in 2023. That trade has been the catalyst of their recent success.

The Colts have not had the level of good fortune to have a franchise QB available at 10 or to have a player that another team would trade as much as the Dolphins traded to get Hill. They have Taylor, but the RB position is devalued in the modern NFL and I doubt anyone would trade a 1, let alone a package of picks like the Dolphins traded, for him.