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#1
03-20-2021, 08:01 PM
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Ballards plan. IndyStar
INDIANAPOLIS — Chris Ballard and the Colts have made a choice.
A choice that can sometimes, admittedly, be frustrating for the fan base this time of the year, watching other teams hand out big-money deals to big-name outside free agents while Indianapolis holds tight, practicing restraint, even at positions of need. The tension the Colts’ philosophy creates could be felt more than ever this week. Indianapolis entered free agency with more cap space available than all but two or three teams in the NFL, but as other cap-flush teams like the Jaguars, Jets and Patriots have splurged, Indianapolis has held back, agreeing to terms on a pair of low-money deals for running back Marlon Mack and Isaac Rochell while letting most of the Colts’ own free agents test the market. “We’re dealing with the most prudent way of looking at (the salary cap) because it’s not this year, next year and the year after, to make sure we’re in a really good position,” Colts owner Jim Irsay said. “I think Chris Ballard has done an outstanding job in keeping us in a strong position. We also know there are key players on this football team that will be getting extensions, and that’s something we have to plan for, as well.” More  oyel: Who, exactly, is new Colts quarterback Carson Wentz?More:Colts believe Carson Wentz can be the franchise QB they've been looking for More:Jim Irsay: Colts aren’t pinching pennies; they’re staying patient, being prudent Those looming extensions, presumably massive deals that will make players like All-Pro linebacker Darius Leonard, right tackle Braden Smith and All-Pro left guard Quenton Nelson among the highest-paid players at their positions, have gotten a lot of play this offseason, frequently cited as the reason the Colts haven’t made a bigger splash in free agency to this point. FOR SUBSCRIBERS Get the Best of the Big Ten newsletter in your inbox. Your guide to Big Ten sports from the writers and columnists who know it best. Delivery: Mon Your Email Ultimately, those extensions are going to cost the Colts a lot of coin. But the reality is also that the extensions aren’t iron-clad handcuffs. If Indianapolis wanted to sign its homegrown players to extensions and simultaneously dole out a couple of big-money deals in free agency, it could do it, largely without much trouble. While other teams restructure contracts, cut veterans and exploit every possibility in the salary cap rules to hand out big-money deals left and right, Indianapolis could sign a few big-money outside free agents and extend its own without having to do anything all that out of the ordinary in structuring the contracts. Colts general manager Chris Ballard. The way the Colts approach free agency is a choice, an organizational philosophy established by their general manager. Ballard believes in discipline. Believes in preserving cap flexibility in the future, rather than cutting players and restructuring contracts to make the numbers work each offseason. Mostly, Ballard believes in getting the right value for his money. “More oftentimes than not, I might be saying ‘Hey, maybe we put a sweetener in there or something,” Irsay said. “And he says, ‘No, let’s stay where we are. That’s what this deal should be.’” Ballard, for all of the talk of his reticence in free agency, isn’t quite like former Green Bay Packers general manager Ted Thompson, who was famous for sitting out free agency entirely and building almost exclusively through the draft. The Colts have made big-money moves. They paid Philip Rivers $25 million last season. Traded two of Ballard’s precious draft picks this year to land Carson Wentz to be the quarterback. But the move that illustrates Ballard’s philosophy best is the trade he made to get All-Pro defensive tackle DeForest Buckner last offseason, sending the 13th pick of the draft to San Francisco and handing Buckner a four-year, $84-million extension in the process, the sort of money Ballard almost never pays to an outside player. Put simply, Ballard believed the juice was worth the squeeze. Ballard is famous for saying that in the early days of free agency, there are a lot of B players getting paid A money. Buckner, Ballard and the Colts believed, is an A player, and he was willing to pay A money to get him. When the Colts allow a group of young, talented outside free agents to sign elsewhere, the way they’ve done at the defensive end position so far in this cycle, it’s almost certainly because Ballard believed the players’ values didn’t match their price points. That’s not every organization’s philosophy. Far from it, and it should be said that there are teams who’ve been much more aggressive in going after outside players than the Colts. The last two Super Bowl champions, the Kansas City Chiefs and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, have both been far more aggressive, willing to bet on the rise of the salary cap covering moves. There are others, like the New Orleans Saints and Los Angeles Rams, who’ve aggressively used outside moves to add to their cores built through the draft, even if they end up having to restructure, add tricks to contracts and bet heavily on the rise of the cap covering all of those moves. There are also plenty of teams who’ve spent an awful lot of A money on B players over the years and gotten almost nothing to show for it. The team that has spent the most money in free agency is the eternally woeful Jacksonville Jaguars, who have lost nearly 75% of their games over the course of that decade. Jacksonville’s far from the only team that hasn’t been able to turn around its fortunes on the open market; the New York Jets, the Las Vegas Raiders, the pre-Andrew Berry iterations of the Cleveland Browns, the Washington Football Team and the New York Giants have frequently been big spenders in recent years without a whole lot to show for it. “Spending big in free agency is the least efficient means to reliably build an annually competitive roster,” NFL analyst Warren Sharp wrote in an NBCSports.com article at the beginning of the month. Fine, a lot of Colts fans would say, but they’re not asking for Indianapolis to start throwing around money the way the Patriots did in the first few days of free agency this week. What they want is more action than Indianapolis has shown this offseason, a big-money player or two to augment the deep, talented core of young players Ballard has assembled. Ballard’s not Thompson, who frequently let two or three offseasons pass in Green Bay without signing any free agents of note. Under Ballard, the Colts have almost always made some moves in free agency, compiling a remarkable success rate on the players he’s signed. Ballard’s best signings — defensive lineman Denico Autry, tight end Eric Ebron, defensive end Justin Houston and cornerback Xavier Rhodes lead the list — have outplayed the deals they signed in Indianapolis, and few Ballard free agents have been outright busts. And even though the Colts’ draft-and-develop philosophy has largely worked through the first four seasons of Ballard’s tenure, it’s fair to wonder if Ballard’s philosophy might hamstring the Colts at some point, leaving a good team with a fatal flaw, or if the Colts might hit higher levels if they approached free agency more aggressively. The problem is there are no clear answers to those questions right now. Free agency is far from over — Ballard often does the bulk of his signings after the opening week — and the draft is still a month and a half away. Even after that, the 2021 offseason can’t properly be evaluated until the Colts play out the 2021 schedule. A good chunk of Colts signings that didn’t make a lot of noise when they signed, ended up paying big dividends in 2020 and 2018. By the same token, the decisions Indianapolis made in free agency in 2019 ended up failing to live up to expectations, outside of Houston, who outplayed almost all of the younger, higher-priced pass rushers signed before him. Ultimately, the Colts aren’t likely ever going to be the team that goes on a huge spending binge. Not under its current leadership, even if Indianapolis didn’t have a handful of massive extensions coming down the pike. There may be offseasons with big moves like the twin headliners of Rivers and Buckner last March, but Ballard is always going to take a disciplined approach. This is the choice Ballard and the Colts have made. 
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#2
03-21-2021, 07:34 PM
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Colts fans ought to know this.
Polian was never a big spender in free agency, and we spent many great years building through the draft. Then Grigson came in and jizzed all over free agency and we got a shitty team full of mercenaries that rightfully had to be blow up. Ballard is here now and we're back to being very picky in free agency, and that's absolutely fine with me.
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#3
03-21-2021, 07:38 PM
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There is middle ground though. Thats a bit more where I would like to be. Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
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Spike (03-21-2021) | ||
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#4
03-21-2021, 10:48 PM
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It is too early to critique this offseason as there are still a lot of players available that could help. And I’m confident whoever Ballard signs will be a bargain. Have to admit though it’s a little frustrating to hear him admit the team isn’t a SB contender yet, but say it is close - and then watch free agency unfold the way it has so far. I’ve previously compared him to Polian and Ted Thompson. I have little doubt we’ll have a lot of really good seasons ahead under his leadership. The question, like with those two comparisons, will be how many great seasons there are. Time will tell.
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rcubed (03-21-2021) | ||
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#5
03-21-2021, 11:07 PM
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#6
03-22-2021, 09:39 AM
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#7
03-22-2021, 10:23 AM
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Interesting article regarding the Patriots philosophy in going hog wild in free agency this offseason - much different that the Colts:
https://profootballtalk.nbcsports.co...gency-splurge/ Basically, Kraft is saying that the pandemic / cap reduction created an inefficiency in the system - less teams competing for free agents - and because they had lots of cap room they were in a unique position to exploit it. While it sounds logical to a degree, I don't know if I agree here. First, it doesn't look to me that they got many bargains in free agency, which is kinda what Kraft is suggesting. Nelson Agholor 2 year / $22 million? Jonnu Smith 4 year / $50 million? Hunter Henry 3 year / $37.5 million? Second, I really don't buy into the idea that this year it is more difficult for teams to sign free agents. Regardless of their available cap space this year, the teams have a toolbox of financial engineering instruments at their disposal, and can still fit a large contract into their cap this year if they really want to - at the expense, of course, of cap impact later down the road.
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#8
03-22-2021, 10:31 AM
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03-22-2021, 12:02 PM
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#10
03-22-2021, 02:06 PM
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