shasta519

The job Ballard was hired to do changed when Luck retired. The problem was that the philosophy didn’t adjust with it. And I am not even sure it has. The AR pick was opportunitistic more than anything. It can’t after a failed “chips in” season. And they are still mostly just doing the same things…using the draft and building around their own. But if AR is good, maybe we will see other moves.

Aiyuk is going to cost quite a bit more than that. He’s a top 10 WR.

Right. KC was also a perennial playoff team prior to Mahomes taking over. The Colts are a fringe playoff team at best, until we see if AR can lift the roster. And to your point, Veach took over the summer before Mahomes’ rookie year. Hard to compare how KC’s FO approach with Dorsey at GM (for several years) vs. when Veach took over. It seems like Ballard has been more like Dorsey and Veach might just operate differently from both of them. If Ballard wanted to follow the Veach KC model, he sure waited a long time to do it once Luck retired.

DeFo was an aggressive move. But I wouldn’t classify Wentz or Ryan as aggressive moves. Getting Stafford would have been an aggressive move at QB. Wentz was cheaper and PHI was looking to dump him. They didn’t even budge from their initial offer to PHI And Ryan sort of fell in their laps after they dumped Wentz.

Now it's $8.5M. Gotta say...never saw that coming.

The thing with Paye is that Ballard has to make a decision on his 5th year option right after the draft. It's only projected to be $13.4M, but the draft could really influence that. Dayo is also set to be a FA. He hasn't really proven he can be a starter yet. And even as a part-time player, he will cost some money to bring back. I think something has to give with the ER positions, so a R1 ER is very likely if the board falls that way.

With the DeFo news, I think we can probably assume DT is not an early round option.

There are levels to the TE debate. One one hand, the market value of the position hurts the value of an early R1 TE. With the rookie wage scale, they come into the NFL already making good money for the position, so there's no real surplus value. On the other hand, the TEs that you would want to build around don't make it to FA, so the market value doesn't matter as much. So getting one when you can is important. But then you also see that there are great TEs taken past R1 as well. Plus, then you have to consider the scheme. Committing a big contract to a RB seems to suggest that this team will be running the ball quite often. How often would they take advantage of Bowers? We saw this unfold in ATL. They spent early R1 draft capital on a TE and a WR...and then ran the ball all the time. So those picks have largely not been maximized. It seems like the Bowers debate is fully dependent on him falling to #15. Then we can see how he ranks over other prospects available.

I don't see any scenario where they are giving up next year's R1 pick. It would be an opportunistic trade up that they can likely spread over this draft and next draft. The MOST we have seen Ballard additionally give up in trade-ups is a mid-late R5 pick. Tyquan, JT, Cross. For him to give up even a Day 2 pick would be out of character. So it would have to be quite the opportunity.

How does one come to this conclusion? They played a bottom 5 schedule and a slew of really bad QB...and still ended up #28 in ppg (for the second year in a row). Realistically, we could be talking about a defense that has a chance to be the worst in the NFL, barring significant development or improvement. I am good with getting a playmaker like one of the big 3 WRs, but the defense needs serious help. Plus, the core of this team will be 30 or older in no time. So they not only need improvement, but replacements as well.

Spotrac has DeFo at $22.75M for this year. But I don't remember what his previous cap hit was prior to the extension.

I think MAC's value is that he can block. Ballard mentioned something about how hard it is to find TEs that can block. So perhaps he doesn't feel they really have anybody else that they trust at this point.

Think it depends on what they do with guys like Dayo, Kelly, Blackmon, Granson, backup QB, P, etc. Spotrac is projecting another jump to $276M. So if that holds, they should have $53M in cap space right now. That could go pretty fast. Am curious to see what they do with Paye and his 5th year option. My guess would be that if next year goes well, we will see one really big move ala 2020. Seemed like that was the initial approach this offseason.

Agree. I think part of that is circumstantial with the bad 2022 season and new HC, like you said. But also, just the sheer amount of guys that need deals within a short amount of time.

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/nfl/colts/colts-insider/2021/03/15/colts-news-denico-autry-agrees-3-year-contract-titans/4702512001/ I don't know what "strong push" means here, but I would assume numbers were exchanged. If I recall, it came down to the contract structure. Looks like that came from Holder: https://coltswire.usatoday.com/2021/03/15/nfl-colts-free-agency-denico-autry-titans-decision-contract-structure/ What probably impacted what seems like a small detail is that the Colts had multiple guys to re-sign to big deals, like Q, Shaq and Smith at the time. But it seems like they at least wanted to and tried to bring him back.