Off-season moves

[Dewey 5]

Originally Posted by Dam8610

Mostly what he's done with the resources he's been given. Andrew Luck's retirement was unprecedented in NFL history. Before Luck's retirement, the Colts were considered Super Bowl contenders in 2019. That doesn't happen with a bad GM, see Ryan Grigson's tenure for proof of that. Ballard has since continued to find talent throughout the draft and turn bad situations into better ones for the most part. He's also added value to the team through free agency, just not generally by making splashy signings. Denico Autry, Eric Ebron, Kenny Moore, Justin Houston, Stephon Gilmore, and Samuel Womack are some examples from the top of my head of players that were brought in and significantly outperformed the contract they were signed to. All of it goes to show the massive importance of the QB position in the NFL. If you have one, you can be a perennial playoff contender without even having a great roster around that guy. If you don't have one, you can put together great rosters around them and still miss the playoffs. That being said, with how important that makes getting the QB position right, if you can't find the right guy as a GM, eventually the team has to move on to try to find someone who can.

I feel the evaluation of AR is incomplete at this point. It's not looking like it's going in a great direction, but given his youth and talent, it's not unreasonable to think he could turn a corner and become the franchise guy, which would bring the division titles and postseason success, the lack of which the anti-Ballard crowd is complaining about. That said, the margin of error for that outcome has gone down. To me, next year is it. It's postseason or bust, and I think that has to happen with AR being the factor that puts the Colts in the postseason. If he doesn't, I think it would be time to clean house at that point.



To me, that unequivocally demonstrates the importance of having a franchise QB on your roster. Player for player, this roster stacks up with just about any roster in the NFL at every position except for QB and TE. The lack at QB is why the team has struggled.

You can go ahead & buy Ballard’s snake oil but I am not