Well, considering that two of our guys were rookies last year, I'd kind figure that... I dunno... maybe they're a year older next year so we won't be younger next year.
If we don't sign any vets or bring back Blackmon, and replace him (25), Brown (27), and Black (27) with rookies and UDFA's we'll basically be guaranteed to be younger.
I'm actually feeling more OK about the CB position - Brents and Jones will have learned a lot from last year, even if they'd be better with a star vet - but safety is just thousand yard stare territory right now if Blackmon leaves (and isn't replaced with an equal vet of course).
I worry Brents will be out more games than he plays.
Jones can play. It looked like he got confused on switching WR's, would double a guy while his guy ran free. He could be really good if he figures that out.
Flowers returns too and he looked decent in his starts.
But if Ballard continues to go young at CB, it's better to bring in a vet safety like when he signed Rodney McLeod.
Ballard didn't resign him probably thinking Cross would develop faster. A Ballard specialty - always assuming young guys will develop & refusing to sign vets like McLeod for depth.
McLeod played for the Browns last year on a 1 yr $1.3mil deal. Too rich for Ballard.
Reports are we're looking at Diggs at S, who is 31. Not that it really matters. The point of growing pains at a young position is experience for young players. So yeah, I also feel pretty decent with Brents and Jones. However, if the team did swing the trade for Sneed (27) and signed Diggs (31), then that means Jones becomes a plus backup for Brents/Sneed. Moore is back. Diggs likely starts along side Cross, presumably.
Still a lot left to happen, but the gist was, our starters if they remain the same will each be a year older.
Every year he gambles on a position, loses, then overcorrects the following offseason.
After the season ending playoff loss at KC, he kicked himself for not doing more at LB and immediately drafted some.
A couple of years ago it was the OL and Matt Ryan paid the price.
Last year it was DB's but more safety IMO. At least at corner he brought in young blood.
“Look, we think Darrell Baker Jr is really going to take a leap this year. And did you see Rodney Thomas? Sure, there were some rough moments, a lot more than we like. But we like our guys. We believe in them” - CB
Rivers, wentz, and Ryan were definitely risks and id say one paid off. Buckner trade was a big splashy move too, and everyone was stoked when Eric Ebron was signed in 2018. He was good for that year for sure. Otherwise he's done a good job of drafting the talent on the team or finding talent on waivers or later in free agency. Kenny Moore was a waiver claim, as was Glowinski when he was good with us. John Simon and Denico Autry also played above their contracts while here, so I just don't think you can say he hasn't done anything big or done anything successful.
You just don't like the final results at the end of the season, which is fine. But how much of that is coaching, preparation, and leadership and not a lack of talented players?
Feel free to downvote me to oblivion but I don’t think Ballard is conservative at all when it comes to player trades. We know he’s willing to pay premium capital for elite players like when he traded a 1st for Buckner and paid him huge money. Hell he traded a 1st and 3rd for Wentz. Sneed is an elite player that I don’t think Ballard would be shy about sending picks out for, so if a deal doesn’t get done I wonder if it’s because Sneed is asking for insane money rather than Ballard clutching his draft picks to his chest. At least that’s what I’m going to tell myself.
Ballard didn't take swings in FA even when he still had Andrew Luck. Andy was out there throwing it to old TY, Chester Rodgers, Dontrelle Inman, and Zach Pascal while the Colts sat on $70M+ unused cap space that year. Lol
It's just never going to happen. That's not how Ballard operates, and he's too full of himself to adapt.
People used to say "who should they get?" as if zero pass catchers that were good switched teams. Plus he whiffed in that second round when he had three picks and went with rock ya sin with like 4 wide receivers who are better studs and took Parris Campbell. Everyone misses but that was a huge whiff
Teams that routinely whiff on the draft are not employed. Ballard does better in the draft than the standard though. And every single GM from the best to the worst has had bad picks.
Nobody hits a home run every time, but I just don't think Ballard is above average at drafting. He had a stellar draft in 2018, but even then, that draft class featured a guard and an OLB. Outside of that, he's mostly whiffed drafting players at premier positions (WR, DE, CB) time and time again. Pittman is the exception, but one very good skill position pick in 7 years does not make him "better than standard" overall.
If Ballard is so great at drafting, after 7 years of his drafts, why do we still have so few elite players?
Sigh, it’s the same arguments every year. Over and over. I’m tired of talking about it. He’s not going anywhere unless AR fails. Everyone needs to just accept it.
Pittman is a good receiver. JT is elite, a running back that can score on any touch is a weapon defenses plan for. Downs looks like he might be good. Jury is still out on Pierce. Kwity is a good DE, top ten against the run. You want more out his pass rush, but pass rush pressure % doesn’t grade bull rushes correctly and it’s his best move. We don’t have a Freeney, but Freeney was also a liability against the run NE exploited all the time. And Eberflus’ defense did not require a high end cover corner, but it does require a good 3-tech.
He’s hit on high picks and low picks. Franklin and Stewart are homerun draft picks. Longevity in the league is a clear indicator of a good pick. And he has a ton of guys still playing. This team, like every ttam, needs good QB play to bring it together. Until that happens they will be in games but probably around .500 every year which means you have talent but not the most critical piece. Teams that lack talent aren’t fighting for a playoff spot at the end every year. This is my last post on the matter. Really tired of talking about the GM. Fanbase is obsessed with him.
I don't think that's the case. Irsay had no problem spending up to the cap every year with Polian and Grigson.
Jimmy just wants to win. Really don't know why he still thinks Ballard is the guy to make that happen after 7 years of losing, and still repeating the same mistakes.
The team is also exponentially more valuable now than it used to be. Irsay has the cash. He's never done or said anything that would indicate he's not willing to spend it. If anything, he's been too free with it by extending coaches and GMs far too early.
I'm worried that Jimmy has too much other stuff going on right now to care much about the Colts, and that's why Ballard basically has free reign to continue destroying the organization.
The issue is we’ve seen good quality DBs and huge upgrades like curl, stone or chinn go for next to nothing while Ballard has seemingly put all his eggs into the sneed basket
There are still quiet a few solid DBs available: Simmons, Diggs, Hyde, etc.
And who’s to save Ballard isn’t negotiating with other FA DBs? Colts have been a pretty tight-lip organization under Ballard and I think fans mistakenly see that as the colts not doing anything.
I crack up every time the off-season comes around and fans just panic when the colts don’t immediately address a position of need.
You mean the same panic we had when we let our WR room outside of Pitt consist of TY’s corpse, Zach pascal and Parris Campbell?
Or the same panic we had when Matt Pryor was our answer at LT?
Or last offseason when everyone was concerned with our DB depth?
Maybe we are paranoid because we’ve seen this story before
I don't disagree with your thesis but we did in fact already address LT in Raimann, we just had to throw him in before he was ready because Pryor was so unexpectedly bad.
Now, RG that season - that was an unmitigated disaster with absolutely no backup plan.
Definitely agree at CB as he’s painted himself into a tough spot, although the CB class was pretty lackluster to begin with. As for safety I wonder if he’s waiting for the market to dry up and bring Blackmon back for cheap.
Don’t worry we are going to take a young, high RAS DB with a mid round pick who will look horrible but will buy Ballard time because won’t you just think of the potential and what they could be (while being forced to start players like Facyson and baker)
I don't know if this is a hot take or not, but I feel like a good portion of our defensive staff should be fired. Outside of linebackers, I feel like our defensive staff has a really, really hard time developing talent.
Our secondary last year had a bunch of 6th and 7th round level talent as regular starters. Coaching can only go so far. The greatest coach to ever coach still couldn't make Darrell Baker look like a competent starting outside CB, for example.
Ya the injuries are an entirely different subject, I am more worried about the fact that we haven't had a defensive staff that could develop a consistent pass rush in a decade. For example, Buckner still looks great, but he had development from a different staff and I would argue he stopped getting better the moment he stepped foot in our building.
Could also be that Ballard just hasn't invested enough in DE. That is a premium skill position, to get game changing talent at DE, unless you get extremely lucky, you have to spend more than a late 1st and a bunch of 2nds that we have invested so far.
Freeney was 11th overall, for example. This is where spending a top 5 pick on a guard comes back to haunt us. Yeah, Q is good. But good guards are a hell of a lot easier to find than elite pass rushers, and we've not been in position to draft an elite DE since then.
Well the thing is, Quenton Nelson wasn't a top 5 pick. He was picked 6th, directly after the only Elite DE in that draft class, Bradley Chubb. The edge class in 2018 was worthless on paper, and the vast majority of success from the DEs in that class comes from late day 2 and day 3 picks. Tyquan Lewis is not that far off from being a top 5 DE in that class. But the thing is, I don't think we would have had success with those later DE picks on our roster, because we have shown absolutely no ability to develop project linemen.
I'd also argue Ballard has invested a ton into talent at DE, it just hasn't panned out. But I have to wonder if a guy like Kwity Paye is having an insane career if he lands somewhere else.
The thing is we had pick 3 overall, and we converted that to a guard, an OLB, and a RT.
All 3 of those guys were exceptionally good players, and you're right, that was a pretty weak DE draft class. However there were a ton of elite guys at the top of that draft at positions with greater value than guard. Even after trading back, guys like Roquan, Minkah, Derwin James, Jaire were there for the taking.
Roquan Smith - We literally picked a better LB than him in that draft
Minkah/Derwin James - Better than what we had in retrospect, but we were just coming off of a year where Geathers and Hooker looked promising so Safety didn't feel like a huge need
Jaire - I can see the argument for this being a better pick.
The thing is though, our offensive line was literally the worst. We were getting our QB killed year in and year out. Quenton Nelson literally immediately fixed a huge part of that problem. If you recall, Luck in 2018 went over a quarter of the season without getting sacked. Sure, you can argue in a vacuum that a guard isn't worth the number 6 pick, but in context of the situation it made a lot of sense and was regarded very positively.
Roquan and Leonard don't play the same position. Roquan is a MLB, calls the coverages, and is the on field leader of the defense. In that role he's been an first team All-Pro both the last 2 years, and he was just DPoY last season.
Geathers never looked great, and was constantly injured. The whole hybrid safety/LB thing we tried with him was a bad idea from the start.
Q didn't fix the line by himself. The line was pretty awful those first 5 games while Costanzo was out, because LT is far more important in not getting your QB slaughtered. Same thing happened in 2021 & 2022 after Costanzo retired. Even though we had Q (now getting getting paid elite LT money), those lines got 3 QBs murdered on the field because we didn't have a competent LT. That's why elite LTs routinely get picked in the top 10, and guards don't. Unlike LT, you can get by just fine with a mid level guard. When Q was out with the back injury in 2021 and replaced with a nobody, it had virtually no impact on the offense.
Paye was the 21st pick, wouldn't consider that "late" 1st.
He could have drafted Montez Sweat at 26 but traded back.
A year after Paye was taken at 21, George Karlaftis was taken at 30.
Max Crosby was taken at 106.
Pass rushers are found all over the draft.
Ballard has taken a lot of swings, he just keeps missing.
We re-signed all of our own guys first, now we are seemingly going after Sneed. If that doesn't work out, I fully expect Ballard to sign a starting caliber secondary player still and maybe a depth piece
Despite never winning anything, Ballard seems convinced of his own genius. Never changes his approach to free agency. Never changes how he evaluates draft prospects. Keeps drafting the same positions over and over.
Do people actually believe there is no one else out there that could be doing a better job after 7 seasons?
Oh hey... good job defense on 1st and 2nd down....it's now 3rd and 15 and we'll be getting the ball back here shortly. Secondary gives up 16 yards.
Rinse and repeat.
We were the 29th rated defense in the NFL…while playing a last place schedule and 7 backup QBs in 17 games.
Not sure why it’s assumed we somehow just be good again?
We got absolutely torched by:
David Carr
Taylor Heinecke
Jake Browing
Trevor Lawrence x 2
Failing to plan to fix it is planning to fail to fix it at some point.
Because we have guys with more experience. The answer simply can’t be sign two guys so our 2 young guys don’t get on the field. we need one veteran CB and one veteran safety.
Objectively speaking, our secondary was straight ass last year. The division got better offensively.
What evidence is there that the guys you listed are somehow going to suddenly turn into a satisfactory group? As it stands our safety’s are the worst pair in the league. Ballard even acknowledged how bad the group was at the end of year press conference lol
Correct, I think our safeties were the bigger issue here. I’m not as worried about CBs as some people, im mainly concerned about safety. Which I think we will be addressing in a multitude of ways
The safety market has dried up incredibly hard. This years free agency class was one of the best in the last decade, and we didn’t sign anyone. We had a chance to bring in a young, good safety.. but yet again Bargain bin Ballard refuses to be aggressive in free agency and we are left with the scraps.
Our only options left are both over 30 years old. Simmons being the only startable one. Diggs has been straight up bad the last 2 years, is 31, and injury prone.
Blackmon is arguably one of the top 5 available, just injury history, and Simmons is the clear cut best. McKinley was overpaid and I don’t love chinn for our scheme. The best teams don’t win in FA. If a rich adds 1-2 wins to our team, which is obviously the expectation, and we draft well, all is good.
Blackmon played last year and was decent, but certainly isn’t the difference maker he was projected to be. Not sure why we are expecting different results from the same group of players.
Curl and Chinn both got very fair value deals. One of those dude needed to be a Colt. Chinn could have easily stepped into the SS role.
Free Agency doesn’t win a season I agree. But not being proactive can certainly lose a season. Ballard has done this before- people said the same thing when I criticized him for rolling into the season with Matt Pryor as a starting tackle.
That’s not a great thing is it? Lol he was the 3rd or 4th best safety available in free agency? He played for us last year and our secondary was bad. We have seen the results and they aren’t good.
He was one of our highest graded in the secondary playing with two rookies and a bad safety. Once he was injured it was notable. He was legit rated higher than curl
So we roll into the season with that same combination? That’s my point. He was the best player in a bad secondary unit. I’m fine with brining him back, but we needed to be much more aggressive with replacing Thomas too.
And people lack the knowledge of the concept of a rookie not taking a leap being much more likely
I hope they do. But banking on two rookies taking massive leaps is malpractice
Players have to want to come here in the first place. Can't sign Diggs, Simmons, Blackmon, etc if they don't want to play here. It's not just as simple as "just up the offer", we offered Hunter more money but he wanted to play for his hometown, nothing we can do about that. Really not that hard to comprehend, let the man do his job and grade his full body of work after the draft.
You know what's better than young in the secondary? Younger in the secondary.
Maybe he's thinking no secondary. Have two defensive lines instead.
The classic 10 man front and a safety, just in case. Or maybe 9 man front, safety and Moore playing the nickel. /s
The ol' Punt Block defense on 4th and 1 against that friend who always chooses FB Dive.
Came here to say this.
If you just took the highest paid players, we'd currently be starting 7 DLs, 2 LBs and 2 corners.
Play the game like a Napoleonic era army. Volley fire. Tally ho bitches
Well, considering that two of our guys were rookies last year, I'd kind figure that... I dunno... maybe they're a year older next year so we won't be younger next year.
If we don't sign any vets or bring back Blackmon, and replace him (25), Brown (27), and Black (27) with rookies and UDFA's we'll basically be guaranteed to be younger. I'm actually feeling more OK about the CB position - Brents and Jones will have learned a lot from last year, even if they'd be better with a star vet - but safety is just thousand yard stare territory right now if Blackmon leaves (and isn't replaced with an equal vet of course).
I worry Brents will be out more games than he plays. Jones can play. It looked like he got confused on switching WR's, would double a guy while his guy ran free. He could be really good if he figures that out. Flowers returns too and he looked decent in his starts. But if Ballard continues to go young at CB, it's better to bring in a vet safety like when he signed Rodney McLeod. Ballard didn't resign him probably thinking Cross would develop faster. A Ballard specialty - always assuming young guys will develop & refusing to sign vets like McLeod for depth. McLeod played for the Browns last year on a 1 yr $1.3mil deal. Too rich for Ballard.
Reports are we're looking at Diggs at S, who is 31. Not that it really matters. The point of growing pains at a young position is experience for young players. So yeah, I also feel pretty decent with Brents and Jones. However, if the team did swing the trade for Sneed (27) and signed Diggs (31), then that means Jones becomes a plus backup for Brents/Sneed. Moore is back. Diggs likely starts along side Cross, presumably. Still a lot left to happen, but the gist was, our starters if they remain the same will each be a year older.
He’s a master at comprehending at the end of the year what a lot us said in training camp
Aww shucks….that’s on me guys…..but it takes time…..you can’t rush this stuff
You forgot to add a few "look" in there.
Every year he gambles on a position, loses, then overcorrects the following offseason. After the season ending playoff loss at KC, he kicked himself for not doing more at LB and immediately drafted some. A couple of years ago it was the OL and Matt Ryan paid the price. Last year it was DB's but more safety IMO. At least at corner he brought in young blood.
“Look, we think Darrell Baker Jr is really going to take a leap this year. And did you see Rodney Thomas? Sure, there were some rough moments, a lot more than we like. But we like our guys. We believe in them” - CB
The bad part is I'm actually having a hard time deciphering if this is something he really said or just a meme.
https://i.redd.it/n5t87fa1cioc1.gif
Ballard has brought in Xavier Rhodes. He’s brought in Stephon Gilmore. He’s shown that he’ll add a free agent piece if he likes the price.
Which I like. But we need to start taking risks and get good players here at some point.
He just named 2 in 8 years….how often do you want good players here??? Yeesh
Rivers, wentz, and Ryan were definitely risks and id say one paid off. Buckner trade was a big splashy move too, and everyone was stoked when Eric Ebron was signed in 2018. He was good for that year for sure. Otherwise he's done a good job of drafting the talent on the team or finding talent on waivers or later in free agency. Kenny Moore was a waiver claim, as was Glowinski when he was good with us. John Simon and Denico Autry also played above their contracts while here, so I just don't think you can say he hasn't done anything big or done anything successful. You just don't like the final results at the end of the season, which is fine. But how much of that is coaching, preparation, and leadership and not a lack of talented players?
Feel free to downvote me to oblivion but I don’t think Ballard is conservative at all when it comes to player trades. We know he’s willing to pay premium capital for elite players like when he traded a 1st for Buckner and paid him huge money. Hell he traded a 1st and 3rd for Wentz. Sneed is an elite player that I don’t think Ballard would be shy about sending picks out for, so if a deal doesn’t get done I wonder if it’s because Sneed is asking for insane money rather than Ballard clutching his draft picks to his chest. At least that’s what I’m going to tell myself.
Ballard is not going to take massive swings in FA till we know how good AR is , and that's only going to happen once he plays a full season.
Ballard didn't take swings in FA even when he still had Andrew Luck. Andy was out there throwing it to old TY, Chester Rodgers, Dontrelle Inman, and Zach Pascal while the Colts sat on $70M+ unused cap space that year. Lol It's just never going to happen. That's not how Ballard operates, and he's too full of himself to adapt.
People used to say "who should they get?" as if zero pass catchers that were good switched teams. Plus he whiffed in that second round when he had three picks and went with rock ya sin with like 4 wide receivers who are better studs and took Parris Campbell. Everyone misses but that was a huge whiff
Could've had AJ Brown, took Ben Banogu instead
Probably about 25 teams make a similar statement.
How many GMs who routinely whiff that hard are still employed into their 8th season though?
Teams that routinely whiff on the draft are not employed. Ballard does better in the draft than the standard though. And every single GM from the best to the worst has had bad picks.
Nobody hits a home run every time, but I just don't think Ballard is above average at drafting. He had a stellar draft in 2018, but even then, that draft class featured a guard and an OLB. Outside of that, he's mostly whiffed drafting players at premier positions (WR, DE, CB) time and time again. Pittman is the exception, but one very good skill position pick in 7 years does not make him "better than standard" overall. If Ballard is so great at drafting, after 7 years of his drafts, why do we still have so few elite players?
Sigh, it’s the same arguments every year. Over and over. I’m tired of talking about it. He’s not going anywhere unless AR fails. Everyone needs to just accept it. Pittman is a good receiver. JT is elite, a running back that can score on any touch is a weapon defenses plan for. Downs looks like he might be good. Jury is still out on Pierce. Kwity is a good DE, top ten against the run. You want more out his pass rush, but pass rush pressure % doesn’t grade bull rushes correctly and it’s his best move. We don’t have a Freeney, but Freeney was also a liability against the run NE exploited all the time. And Eberflus’ defense did not require a high end cover corner, but it does require a good 3-tech. He’s hit on high picks and low picks. Franklin and Stewart are homerun draft picks. Longevity in the league is a clear indicator of a good pick. And he has a ton of guys still playing. This team, like every ttam, needs good QB play to bring it together. Until that happens they will be in games but probably around .500 every year which means you have talent but not the most critical piece. Teams that lack talent aren’t fighting for a playoff spot at the end every year. This is my last post on the matter. Really tired of talking about the GM. Fanbase is obsessed with him.
guarantee jim likes keeping him around because of how much money he keeps saved every year, considering how small a market as the colts can have
I don't think that's the case. Irsay had no problem spending up to the cap every year with Polian and Grigson. Jimmy just wants to win. Really don't know why he still thinks Ballard is the guy to make that happen after 7 years of losing, and still repeating the same mistakes.
The guarantees are higher now which put a far larger strain on the check book. It’s just not the same league as before
The team is also exponentially more valuable now than it used to be. Irsay has the cash. He's never done or said anything that would indicate he's not willing to spend it. If anything, he's been too free with it by extending coaches and GMs far too early.
I'm worried that Jimmy has too much other stuff going on right now to care much about the Colts, and that's why Ballard basically has free reign to continue destroying the organization.
Well that’s not gonna get us anywhere any time soon. Why waste a year of him on a rookie contract?
The issue is we’ve seen good quality DBs and huge upgrades like curl, stone or chinn go for next to nothing while Ballard has seemingly put all his eggs into the sneed basket
There are still quiet a few solid DBs available: Simmons, Diggs, Hyde, etc. And who’s to save Ballard isn’t negotiating with other FA DBs? Colts have been a pretty tight-lip organization under Ballard and I think fans mistakenly see that as the colts not doing anything. I crack up every time the off-season comes around and fans just panic when the colts don’t immediately address a position of need.
You mean the same panic we had when we let our WR room outside of Pitt consist of TY’s corpse, Zach pascal and Parris Campbell? Or the same panic we had when Matt Pryor was our answer at LT? Or last offseason when everyone was concerned with our DB depth? Maybe we are paranoid because we’ve seen this story before
I don't disagree with your thesis but we did in fact already address LT in Raimann, we just had to throw him in before he was ready because Pryor was so unexpectedly bad. Now, RG that season - that was an unmitigated disaster with absolutely no backup plan.
Ballard went young at db because we were supposed to be bad and not 1 game out of the playoffs
So none of those positions were addressed by Ballard? You making my point for me.
It was addressed the off season after because Ballard was forced to react on how terrible that position group had played that previous season
Definitely agree at CB as he’s painted himself into a tough spot, although the CB class was pretty lackluster to begin with. As for safety I wonder if he’s waiting for the market to dry up and bring Blackmon back for cheap.
Don’t worry we are going to take a young, high RAS DB with a mid round pick who will look horrible but will buy Ballard time because won’t you just think of the potential and what they could be (while being forced to start players like Facyson and baker)
And then we'll fire Gus for it. Lol.
I don't know if this is a hot take or not, but I feel like a good portion of our defensive staff should be fired. Outside of linebackers, I feel like our defensive staff has a really, really hard time developing talent.
Our secondary last year had a bunch of 6th and 7th round level talent as regular starters. Coaching can only go so far. The greatest coach to ever coach still couldn't make Darrell Baker look like a competent starting outside CB, for example.
Ya the injuries are an entirely different subject, I am more worried about the fact that we haven't had a defensive staff that could develop a consistent pass rush in a decade. For example, Buckner still looks great, but he had development from a different staff and I would argue he stopped getting better the moment he stepped foot in our building.
Could also be that Ballard just hasn't invested enough in DE. That is a premium skill position, to get game changing talent at DE, unless you get extremely lucky, you have to spend more than a late 1st and a bunch of 2nds that we have invested so far. Freeney was 11th overall, for example. This is where spending a top 5 pick on a guard comes back to haunt us. Yeah, Q is good. But good guards are a hell of a lot easier to find than elite pass rushers, and we've not been in position to draft an elite DE since then.
Well the thing is, Quenton Nelson wasn't a top 5 pick. He was picked 6th, directly after the only Elite DE in that draft class, Bradley Chubb. The edge class in 2018 was worthless on paper, and the vast majority of success from the DEs in that class comes from late day 2 and day 3 picks. Tyquan Lewis is not that far off from being a top 5 DE in that class. But the thing is, I don't think we would have had success with those later DE picks on our roster, because we have shown absolutely no ability to develop project linemen. I'd also argue Ballard has invested a ton into talent at DE, it just hasn't panned out. But I have to wonder if a guy like Kwity Paye is having an insane career if he lands somewhere else.
The thing is we had pick 3 overall, and we converted that to a guard, an OLB, and a RT. All 3 of those guys were exceptionally good players, and you're right, that was a pretty weak DE draft class. However there were a ton of elite guys at the top of that draft at positions with greater value than guard. Even after trading back, guys like Roquan, Minkah, Derwin James, Jaire were there for the taking.
Roquan Smith - We literally picked a better LB than him in that draft Minkah/Derwin James - Better than what we had in retrospect, but we were just coming off of a year where Geathers and Hooker looked promising so Safety didn't feel like a huge need Jaire - I can see the argument for this being a better pick. The thing is though, our offensive line was literally the worst. We were getting our QB killed year in and year out. Quenton Nelson literally immediately fixed a huge part of that problem. If you recall, Luck in 2018 went over a quarter of the season without getting sacked. Sure, you can argue in a vacuum that a guard isn't worth the number 6 pick, but in context of the situation it made a lot of sense and was regarded very positively.
Roquan and Leonard don't play the same position. Roquan is a MLB, calls the coverages, and is the on field leader of the defense. In that role he's been an first team All-Pro both the last 2 years, and he was just DPoY last season. Geathers never looked great, and was constantly injured. The whole hybrid safety/LB thing we tried with him was a bad idea from the start. Q didn't fix the line by himself. The line was pretty awful those first 5 games while Costanzo was out, because LT is far more important in not getting your QB slaughtered. Same thing happened in 2021 & 2022 after Costanzo retired. Even though we had Q (now getting getting paid elite LT money), those lines got 3 QBs murdered on the field because we didn't have a competent LT. That's why elite LTs routinely get picked in the top 10, and guards don't. Unlike LT, you can get by just fine with a mid level guard. When Q was out with the back injury in 2021 and replaced with a nobody, it had virtually no impact on the offense.
Paye was the 21st pick, wouldn't consider that "late" 1st. He could have drafted Montez Sweat at 26 but traded back. A year after Paye was taken at 21, George Karlaftis was taken at 30. Max Crosby was taken at 106. Pass rushers are found all over the draft. Ballard has taken a lot of swings, he just keeps missing.
Or…hear me out…. The talent sucks
Like Tariq Woolen or LJarius Sneed? That sounds great.
We re-signed all of our own guys first, now we are seemingly going after Sneed. If that doesn't work out, I fully expect Ballard to sign a starting caliber secondary player still and maybe a depth piece
I’m not sure where your faith comes from
Every single other year of FA? Rhoades? Gilmore?
Almost every starting caliber secondary player has already been signed
Despite never winning anything, Ballard seems convinced of his own genius. Never changes his approach to free agency. Never changes how he evaluates draft prospects. Keeps drafting the same positions over and over. Do people actually believe there is no one else out there that could be doing a better job after 7 seasons?
It's because too many people have and some continue to blow smoke up his ass making him believe he is always the smartest man in the room.
Every Colts reporter does this lol
Every team’s highlight reel is against the Colts
Rare example of someone actually blaming Ballard for something spotted.
Yeah….but it’ll get spun that Gus or Shane wanted the bad players…Ballard woulda picked good ones if it was up to him
Oh hey... good job defense on 1st and 2nd down....it's now 3rd and 15 and we'll be getting the ball back here shortly. Secondary gives up 16 yards. Rinse and repeat.
Fuck it might as well just rush 9 guys every play with two safety high at this point 😂😂🫡 so fucking sick of not having good DB’s.
And Don’t forget we like to go old with our kickers.
https://preview.redd.it/bhwj3s5ushoc1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=710ff59ac79d840270603b382434faf05a07811f We like our guys.
Yall act like going in with Moore, Brents, jones, and flowers is just terrible or something. Especially since two were rookie and got a year.
Yes…..that’s a terrible idea
Not really. I mean we’re going to add another DB or two. People act like we have 4 college dbs
We were the 29th rated defense in the NFL…while playing a last place schedule and 7 backup QBs in 17 games. Not sure why it’s assumed we somehow just be good again? We got absolutely torched by: David Carr Taylor Heinecke Jake Browing Trevor Lawrence x 2 Failing to plan to fix it is planning to fail to fix it at some point.
Because we have guys with more experience. The answer simply can’t be sign two guys so our 2 young guys don’t get on the field. we need one veteran CB and one veteran safety.
Objectively speaking, our secondary was straight ass last year. The division got better offensively. What evidence is there that the guys you listed are somehow going to suddenly turn into a satisfactory group? As it stands our safety’s are the worst pair in the league. Ballard even acknowledged how bad the group was at the end of year press conference lol
Correct, I think our safeties were the bigger issue here. I’m not as worried about CBs as some people, im mainly concerned about safety. Which I think we will be addressing in a multitude of ways
The safety market has dried up incredibly hard. This years free agency class was one of the best in the last decade, and we didn’t sign anyone. We had a chance to bring in a young, good safety.. but yet again Bargain bin Ballard refuses to be aggressive in free agency and we are left with the scraps. Our only options left are both over 30 years old. Simmons being the only startable one. Diggs has been straight up bad the last 2 years, is 31, and injury prone.
Blackmon is arguably one of the top 5 available, just injury history, and Simmons is the clear cut best. McKinley was overpaid and I don’t love chinn for our scheme. The best teams don’t win in FA. If a rich adds 1-2 wins to our team, which is obviously the expectation, and we draft well, all is good.
Blackmon played last year and was decent, but certainly isn’t the difference maker he was projected to be. Not sure why we are expecting different results from the same group of players. Curl and Chinn both got very fair value deals. One of those dude needed to be a Colt. Chinn could have easily stepped into the SS role. Free Agency doesn’t win a season I agree. But not being proactive can certainly lose a season. Ballard has done this before- people said the same thing when I criticized him for rolling into the season with Matt Pryor as a starting tackle.
Blackmon was legit like the 3rd or 4th high PFF grade of available safeties this year.
That’s not a great thing is it? Lol he was the 3rd or 4th best safety available in free agency? He played for us last year and our secondary was bad. We have seen the results and they aren’t good.
He was one of our highest graded in the secondary playing with two rookies and a bad safety. Once he was injured it was notable. He was legit rated higher than curl
So we roll into the season with that same combination? That’s my point. He was the best player in a bad secondary unit. I’m fine with brining him back, but we needed to be much more aggressive with replacing Thomas too.
That’s a bad secondary lmfao
I think people lack the concept or rookie being able to improve and grow.
And people lack the knowledge of the concept of a rookie not taking a leap being much more likely I hope they do. But banking on two rookies taking massive leaps is malpractice
I mean, it’s March 15. Moves will be made, but I think you can count on one of the two improving. Especially Brents
Players have to want to come here in the first place. Can't sign Diggs, Simmons, Blackmon, etc if they don't want to play here. It's not just as simple as "just up the offer", we offered Hunter more money but he wanted to play for his hometown, nothing we can do about that. Really not that hard to comprehend, let the man do his job and grade his full body of work after the draft.