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Originally Posted by omahacolt
I don’t think you have to do one or the other when you have cap space and an elite qb. Signing a cb wouldn’t have hurt the developerment if anyone for example.
But yes, they should be in the playoffs at least next year. Otherwise Ballard should probably be shown the door
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So much resistance here to Ballard and his strategy, I don’t understand it. The guy’s done a great job since he’s been here, mostly by taking an approach that the majority of the people here seem to disagree with. Many people here (yourself included, if I’m not mistaken) disagreed with his draft picks this year, yet its starting to look like one of the best non-QB drafts in recent memory. And the outcries of pain when he cut Hankins, Simons and traded Anderson were deafening – yet those decisions don’t seem to have harmed the Colts in the least and our defense is playing better than it was with those guys. Keeping Hunt was another ripe source of criticism, and once again it proved to be a great decision. Give the guy credit.
Now, he hasn’t been perfect – the WR corps hasn’t played very well, though again I’m not sure what better options he had. I’m guessing that heading into the season he thought it would be adequate, but sometimes you don’t know that your boat leaks until you put it in the water. I don’t think that signing Grant was a bad decision at the time, even though it hasn’t turned out that well yet. I don’t see that there were a lot of great free agents WRs that he could have signed (maybe Allan Robinson as GBB pointed out, but who else?).
I get your point that our CB corps is bad, and it’s undeniably true. It’s easy to complain about this six games into the season, but if you’re going to do so you should at least explain what specifically you think he should have done instead. Who do you think he should he have signed? And did you say this before the season, or are you just using hindsight that wasn’t available to Ballard? I’m looking at the 2018 free agent list for CBs and it’s relatively uninspiring (Malcolm Butler was the top free agent CB, and now the Titans are complaining about him).
Let’s also not forget what Ballard said before free agency began – that we wanted to build a culture before adding high priced free agents. I think this has been particularly true on the defense.
The complaints about his cap usage are a bit short-sighted in my view as well. The money hasn’t gone anywhere and he hasn’t wasted cap space – what he didn’t use this offseason will be used later. It HAS to be under the rules (or paid to the player’s association). What’s so hard for everyone to understand about this? That’s how the system works. By focusing on establishing his culture this year, he’s simultaneously saved cap space for use over then next few years to further improve the roster – it’s a clear strategy that could and should pay big dividends.
As far as the playoffs are concerned, I think next year is certainly a realistic possibility. I haven’t quite given up on this year yet, though, as we’re thankfully in a weak division and I expect our team to improve gradually over the course of the season. I’ll admit I expected to do better than 1-5, but despite the record I think we’ve seen lots of promising signs on the field and they’ve been much more fun to watch than last year’s squad.
Sorry for the long rant, but I do get frustrated with some of the pessimism here – I think Ballard was a great hire and we’re on a very promising course.