Colts fire OC Marcus Brady

[AlwaysSunnyinIndy]

Originally Posted by ChoppedWood

Frank Reich is proving to us over and over and over and over, Frank Reich's loyalty is to Frank the genius Reich and to NO ONE else!

Reich gave Strausser a vote of confidence at his press conference.


However, if the OL continues its mediocre play the rest of the season, I doubt Strausser's contract will be renewed in the off season.

https://twitter.com/JoelAErickson/st...42550173401090

Reich says he has confidence in Chris Strausser, says OL needs to play better but says he believes the OL is improving.

https://twitter.com/NateAtkins_/stat...42813084958724

Frank Reich offered support for OL coach Chris Strausser. He believes in the track record and said the pass protection has been better the past couple of weeks.

Strausser has come under fire since the highest-paid offensive line in football has not shown any consistency.

[rm1369]

Originally Posted by HoosierinFL

The line was not very good last year either. Smith wasn’t good at all, the LT okay was bad, Nelson and kelly were slightly above average, and glow was the only one who looked decent.
Wentz was hit a lot last year but was much more mobile than Ryan.

The oline struggled run blocking early and late. Early because Ballard banked on Fisher coming back from an achilles injury. And late because of Covid and the loss of Kelly’s daughter. In between they were opening up pretty damn good holes in the run game. Pass blocking was spotty throughout. All I’ll say is if the issue with all the Oline is Reich then Ballard’s an even bigger fucking idiot for handing out huge contracts to 3 shit players. If none of the oline has been good under Reich then why the fuck have we locked guys in and have the highest paid oline in the league?

[CletusPyle]

Originally Posted by CletusPyle

Maybe they will bring in an OC that actually will call the plays....,doubtful, but we can hope!

Great news....instead of hiring a new OC, Frank will be calling all the plays the rest of this season!

[ChaosTheory]

Originally Posted by Oldcolt

Chaos do you think Ballard has done a good job of building the team?

Fans perception of the team 8 games into this particular season doesn't paint the full picture. But overall, yes. That doesn't mean he's aced everything. I've said all along that Pryor and LT have been his biggest failure. And he whiffed on Basham, Banogu, and Turay. There are others.

But he built the entire defense. Although it's not complete (of course we'd all love our own Nick Bosa), I like our defensive personnel. I think he nails LB, just about nails S, nailed Grover + Buckner, has gotten some good young guys at CB in Rodgers and Moore and brought in good vets like Gilmore or Xavier Rhodes before him, and our DE situation was weak and is getting better. Kwity was playing really well when he got hurt, I think Dayo will keep getting better (they're both 23), and Tyquan Lewis was under the radar playing really well for us.

We all know the story with the OL this season... meaning NOBODY understands why they have inexplicably played so poorly this year. But until now, the OL was a strength for us. We just produced the rushing champ last year.

We just lost one of my favorites in Nyheim Hines and that stings. But Ballard drafted that RB in the first place. He brought Mack in who played well for us and brought Taylor in after. We've already seen Deon Jackson play well when called. That lets me trust that he can bring guys in who can play going forward.

Receiving corps was the trendy panic position this offseason. Not unwarranted. But as wrong as he may have been trusting Pryor and Pinter... I think he may have been equally correct trusting guys like Campbell, Granson, a rookie Pierce, etc., to go with Pittman. We don't have an All-Pro, but I think we have plenty of weapons.

I look at moves he makes for this team, weigh it with the shortcomings, and it leads me to easily trust future moves.

The elephant is QB which is it's own long discussion. Here's your Rorschach, I'll just put it like this: Assume these Ballard teams are healthy and stick Luck at QB. Now compare to those 11-5 teams Luck played on under Pagano. Are we better?

[rm1369]

Originally Posted by Chaka

Why won't it result in anything significant? Just because the Colts have hit some rough territory doesn't mean that the underlying strategy is wrong. What's wrong with a plan to use your funds to invest in the guys you know best - your own players - and to be skeptical of guys coming from other teams whose own teams won't pay them what you think Ballard should pay them? If you can identify talent - and Ballard can do that - it seems like a perfectly logical and solid plan to me.

It's nice to say in the abstract that the Colts should spend more money in free agency, but on who?

You can say that he's overpaid his own players, and that may be true in some cases, but nothing he's done has hampered the Colts financially in any meaningful way. The bottom line is the lack of a QB is the real issue. Criticize the Colts all you want for going the veteran route instead of trying to draft a guy, but my guess is that the batting average is far better on veteran QBs than mid-1st round QBs or later. I don't buy all the claims that the Colts could have traded up higher into the first round to get someone like Herbert - why would the Chargers do that? And further, the Colts were ready to compete and a veteran QB makes more sense in that context than an rookie.

Chaka you and I have been having this discussion for 3-4 years. And guess what? We are exactly where I have been saying we would end up - mediocre.

I’m not so sure what is hard to understand. Ballard has never fielded a complete team. Never. Yes every team has some degree of weakness. It’s a matter of magnitude. And Ballard has repeatedly left several major areas extremely weak while waiting on player development or next years draft. LT, WR, and DE primarily. Ballard refuses to “overspend” on average NFL talent. Great, except that means the team has repeatedly put out below average players at critical positions each and every year. Having a few great players that carry the bad players works in the NBA, it doesn’t in the NFL. You get exposed. If you have bottom 5 pass rush it doesn’t matter how great your LBs and secondary are. Oline can’t block? Doesn’t matter much you have the best RB in the league or have maybe finally solved the WR issue. We’ve seen it year after year - an obvious issue the team says is fine, then it costs them games and they spend half the season trying to find a solution.

Where this intersects with Ballard’s approach to the cap is that other teams do mortgage some of the future for today. Instead of filling holes with rookies and vet minimum guys they shoot their shot and shore up areas with over paid average players. It doesn’t always work, but it sure as fuck beats what Ballard does. Do the colts have a brighter future than the rams? Maybe. But the Rams have something to show for prioritizing a window. I guess Ballard’s is yet to come

That doesn’t even touch how he’s been fucking up at QB. I mostly give him a pass there. It’s an unbelievable difficult task, but one he makes more difficult by his “building a dynasty” philosophy.

Let me ask you - how many more years does Ballard need to prove what you and him believe? I said it was at best a 4 year plan before competitiveness using his method. Most on here, especially you, told me I was nuts. So I’ll ask - how much longer until the genius reveals itself?

[Oldcolt]

Originally Posted by ChaosTheory

Fans perception of the team 8 games into this particular season doesn't paint the full picture. But overall, yes. That doesn't mean he's aced everything. I've said all along that Pryor and LT have been his biggest failure. And he whiffed on Basham, Banogu, and Turay. There are others.

But he built the entire defense. Although it's not complete (of course we'd all love our own Nick Bosa), I like our defensive personnel. I think he nails LB, just about nails S, nailed Grover + Buckner, has gotten some good young guys at CB in Rodgers and Moore and brought in good vets like Gilmore or Xavier Rhodes before him, and our DE situation was weak and is getting better. Kwity was playing really well when he got hurt, I think Dayo will keep getting better (they're both 23), and Tyquan Lewis was under the radar playing really well for us.

We all know the story with the OL this season... meaning NOBODY understands why they have inexplicably played so poorly this year. But until now, the OL was a strength for us. We just produced the rushing champ last year.

We just lost one of my favorites in Nyheim Hines and that stings. But Ballard drafted that RB in the first place. He brought Mack in who played well for us and brought Taylor in after. We've already seen Deon Jackson play well when called. That lets me trust that he can bring guys in who can play going forward.

Receiving corps was the trendy panic position this offseason. Not unwarranted. But as wrong as he may have been trusting Pryor and Pinter... I think he may have been equally correct trusting guys like Campbell, Granson, a rookie Pierce, etc., to go with Pittman. We don't have an All-Pro, but I think we have plenty of weapons.

I look at moves he makes for this team, weigh it with the shortcomings, and it leads me to easily trust future moves.

The elephant is QB which is it's own long discussion. Here's your Rorschach, I'll just put it like this: Assume these Ballard teams are healthy and stick Luck at QB. Now compare to those 11-5 teams Luck played on under Pagano. Are we better?

This makes sense to me. I tend to fall on the side of not being happy with how this roster is put together, but it certainly isn’t something that is black and white (like Grigson) to me. And I will say that there is a chance that he hit on Ehlingher which if he did counts for a ton. And I think it is 60-40 that he did. So Ballard is far from the worst GM out there and I get that letting him go you could easily end up in a worst position. You can learn from mistakes and hopefully he will. It a total mess right now.

[Racehorse]

Originally Posted by ChaosTheory

Fans perception of the team 8 games into this particular season doesn't paint the full picture. But overall, yes. That doesn't mean he's aced everything. I've said all along that Pryor and LT have been his biggest failure. And he whiffed on Basham, Banogu, and Turay. There are others.

But he built the entire defense. Although it's not complete (of course we'd all love our own Nick Bosa), I like our defensive personnel. I think he nails LB, just about nails S, nailed Grover + Buckner, has gotten some good young guys at CB in Rodgers and Moore and brought in good vets like Gilmore or Xavier Rhodes before him, and our DE situation was weak and is getting better. Kwity was playing really well when he got hurt, I think Dayo will keep getting better (they're both 23), and Tyquan Lewis was under the radar playing really well for us.

We all know the story with the OL this season... meaning NOBODY understands why they have inexplicably played so poorly this year. But until now, the OL was a strength for us. We just produced the rushing champ last year.

We just lost one of my favorites in Nyheim Hines and that stings. But Ballard drafted that RB in the first place. He brought Mack in who played well for us and brought Taylor in after. We've already seen Deon Jackson play well when called. That lets me trust that he can bring guys in who can play going forward.

Receiving corps was the trendy panic position this offseason. Not unwarranted. But as wrong as he may have been trusting Pryor and Pinter... I think he may have been equally correct trusting guys like Campbell, Granson, a rookie Pierce, etc., to go with Pittman. We don't have an All-Pro, but I think we have plenty of weapons.

I look at moves he makes for this team, weigh it with the shortcomings, and it leads me to easily trust future moves.

The elephant is QB which is it's own long discussion. Here's your Rorschach, I'll just put it like this: Assume these Ballard teams are healthy and stick Luck at QB. Now compare to those 11-5 teams Luck played on under Pagano. Are we better?

Let me try to explain why I think our line looks so much worse. Rivers was adept at reading a defense, which put the line in a great position to protect him. Wentz was the opposite, and Ryan was somewhere between the two, but slow as molasses. Add in the fact that pass rushers are becoming tremendously athletic freaks, and most lines struggle with blocking. If our QB can be even remotely close to where Rivers was about reading the defenses, we will see vast improvements.

[Racehorse]

Originally Posted by Oldcolt

This makes sense to me. I tend to fall on the side of not being happy with how this roster is put together, but it certainly isn’t something that is black and white (like Grigson) to me. And I will say that there is a chance that he hit on Ehlingher which if he did counts for a ton. And I think it is 60-40 that he did. So Ballard is far from the worst GM out there and I get that letting him go you could easily end up in a worst position. You can learn from mistakes and hopefully he will. It a total mess right now.

What Ehlinger brings to the table is that he is a winner. Yes, he has some drawbacks, but being a winner can mask a ton of them if the coaches know how to put together a game plan.

[Oldcolt]

Originally Posted by Racehorse

Let me try to explain why I think our line looks so much worse. Rivers was adept at reading a defense, which put the line in a great position to protect him. Wentz was the opposite, and Ryan was somewhere between the two, but slow as molasses. Add in the fact that pass rushers are becoming tremendously athletic freaks, and most lines struggle with blocking. If our QB can be even remotely close to where Rivers was about reading the defenses, we will see vast improvements.

I don’t know Racehorse. That may be why they are not good at pass blocking (I don’t buy that though, these guys are getting their asses handed to them one on one) but what is your theory on why they cannot run block for shit? There used to be not only holes to run through but every week I looked forward to watching Nelson flatten someone. Baldy made it something you didn’t want to miss. Now Nelson is getting flattened. The thing that makes the most sense is injury to his back but my god why would you give that contract to a guard with a back injury?

[Hoopsdoc]

Originally Posted by AlwaysSunnyinIndy

Reich gave Strausser a vote of confidence at his press conference.


However, if the OL continues its mediocre play the rest of the season, I doubt Strausser's contract will be renewed in the off season.

https://twitter.com/JoelAErickson/st...42550173401090



https://twitter.com/NateAtkins_/stat...42813084958724

That’s crazy to me. By every available metric, the Colts are one of the worst lines in football, in both run and pass blocking.

The offensive line is why Matt Ryan was benched, it’s why Taylor has been ineffective all season, and it’s why Brady got fired.

The play of the line is at the root of every other problem. Blowing smoke up everyones ass doesn’t change that, because it’s so painfully obvious.

I feel like personal politics played more of a role in these moves than anything else. If a shakeup was needed, it should have been made at the source of the problem.

Firing Brady just feels like a desperation move, a move aimed more at getting people off of their asses than actually addressing the problems.