Yoshinator

I have us at 7.5 wins. Don't see us realistically having a chance at the division or the playoffs. Richardson hasn't even proven he can win games yet, and that's who we are pinning our hopes on without improving the team. We'll obviously draft some guys, but they will be rookies and won't get much playing time this year. That's what FA was supposed to be for, so we could fill needs before the draft and go BPA with whomever fell to us. The young players will get better, but that's true for all teams in that theory, especially the AFC South. See a year like last year except it'll be where Richardson finally starts to develop and we won't truly make a run until 2025.

I missed this thread completely. Richardson would be 5th in this years draft IMO. He'd be behind Williams, Daniels, Maye and McCarthy, and ahead of Penix and Nix. McCarthy has a lot more traction than a lot of people here are giving him credit for. He could go as high as no2 to the Commanders. Both them and the Pats have heavy interest in him.

I feel Ballard put us in a spot where we need a top CB still by not trading for Sneed. Mitchell is the perfect scheme fit for Gus Bradley's defense. Ballard may not pick him, but I like him better than anyone else at 15 when you combine need and scheme fit.

Rewriting this without the errors. It's late.

What if like last year, 9-8 not only doesn't win the division, but causes us to miss the playoffs by one game again. Do you agree Ballard should be fired? That would be 3 times in 4 years we'd miss the playoffs by one game, with a bottom 5 finish sandwiched in between.

When I won the Pokemon State Championship in 2007, I was the 8 seed in the playoffs. Top 8 made the playoffs. I had to run the gauntlet and beat the top 3 seeds in succession. I did it with a bunch of help from a card called pokemon reversal that lets you switch out your opponents active pokemon for a bench pokemon if you flip a heads on a coin. People were notorious for developing their bench and leaving an active pokemon to do nothing to absorb damage, and I countered that by developing my active pokemon and bringing out the bench pokemon they were trying to develop and OHKO them. Point I'm trying to make is, getting lucky happens, but you take it when you can get it. Moments like that may only happen once. So enjoy them when they do. If the Colts were the 7 seed and won the SB, I'd be ecstatic. It happened with the Braves as the worst playoff team in 2021 when Acuna got hurt, and I was ecstatic there too.

I feel more anger after barely not cashing in daily fantasy football in a tourney or someone scoring a td and knocking me down the leaderboard than I do if the Colts lose now. Losing Richardson upset me last year, but it took something like that to get a response out of me. Just like it took not signing Sneed to get a response out of me. I feel like I have a good idea of what to expect from the Colts and Ballard now, and I've become apathetic towards the team.

I personally couldn't get invested into the season last year because I knew that Minshew had no future as our starting QB beyond the season. So anything we accomplished was limited to that year with him. It was playoffs or bust, and we didn't make it. The season was a failure. That's my opinion on it.

Yeah, if we win the SB, I'm happy no matter what. Don't care if Flacco is the QB.

Last season wasn't enjoyable because our Franchise QB went down with a season ending injury. You can say Minshew got us one game away from a playoff game. Think about it though. What's the best that could come from it? Either Minshew was going to hit FA and we don't re-sign him (which is what happened), and that result is meaningless because Minshew isn't on the team next year and we missed the playoffs. The second option is Minshew re-signs and is the backup again. If that happens, then AR still is going through what is mostly a rookie year in his 2nd year and you have to hope he can do what Minshew does, and you have Minshew to do the same thing if AR goes down again. Or Minshew starts for some reason and you get another mediocre season and you give up on AR as the starter (this would never happen). In any case, it was a one season illusion like Phillip Rivers without making the playoffs, and AR still has to develop. We got the worst possible result being 1 game short, Richardson didn't get much development, and we are picking 15th in the draft. Not too mention Stroud is the guy in Houston now, and that sucks for the Colts in the division.

Yeah, you are a top poster on here for sure. You tell the truth whether it's positive or negative. I wish we would start winning. I like being positive, but I won't sugercoat things either. If the team sucks, I'll call it out. If they do something great, I'll praise them. That's how it should be.

Thank you. I respect yours as well. It's crazy that we have no division titles and only 1 playoff win. In 2018, I thought this team was going to be so good after the draft. Crazy how it all came crumbling down.

Yep, it's like WWE wrestling. The posters who describe themselves as the biggest positive people are a lot of time the biggest heels, and the people who are the most negative people (heels) generally are the people who want the best for this team and are the most rational. We wish the best for the team, but we are frustrated and won't pretend everything is good when it isn't. It's like when you are in pain in real life and need to go to the doctor and brush it off as everything's okay. Ballard is that pain.

I'm saying our history doesn't matter under Ballard specifically, because he accomplished 0 of it. As Colts fans with Polian as the GM, it does mean something. We can enjoy past accomplishments still, but we can't contribute them to Ballard or think because we won in the past, it means we have a better chance to win in the future because everything is different besides Irsay. The current GM has never won anything but a playoff game that's meaningful. We have a 2nd year HC that's still green (although with potential), the team has never won anything together that's meaningful. Everything is different from our past success, and the only constant is Irsay.

The pass rush would be passable if we blitzed more. Unfortunately, we don't get pressure, and last years sack total is the exception and not the norm. Pittman can catch the ball well and run routes, but he doesn't separate. Pierce is just bad right now, and his potential is based on Richardson. Downs is good. The tight ends are a bunch of potential guys who have done nothing. You almost have to give the group a year with full health, but there's no telling how they do. The secondary is bad. Sneed would have done wonders for us. Mitchell is a perfect scheme fit at 15, but the Vikings, Broncos, and Raiders are all threats to take him. Situation sucks for Colts fans who want to win and have put up with this crap for years. We have to hope Richardson can stay healthy or it's more of the same before we even know he's good.

Unfortunately, Ballard contributed to none of this, and that is the problem. I praise Polian and Manning for what they did for this team.

Yep. The sad thing is we don't even really benefit from not signing FAs with the compensatory pick system. We rarely ever have extra picks. I think maybe 2-3 extra picks since Ballard took over. No other FAs sign for enough money to qualify most of the time, and if they do, we cancel it out with the 2nd tier FAs we do sign. So it's not like we are just signing our own to gain extra picks, we are just stuck in neutral and paying more to stay the same. Sneed would have been nice. If Mitchell and Arnold get drafted before us, we may be in some trouble at the CB position for the draft and next year. You pretend like Ballard has a trophy case. That was Polian, let me remind you.

I hate Ballard because he makes watching the Colts an unenjoyable experience. I would prefer he do well (even if his approach is bad) because it would mean the Colts are doing well. On the contrary, any playoff team that's a contender loves Chris Ballard because they know he isn't going to be a threat to beat them or make the playoffs (the Chiefs in the regular season not withstanding). The only people who are Ballard-haters are Colts fans who want to win and are frustrated with the team since 2019. 31 other teams fanbases love Chris Ballard not because he's good at what he does, but because he makes sure the Colts are stuck in mediocrity and that's one less team that will contend for the SB. Texans fans really love Chris Ballard.

I see the class as deep, and defense as a bigger need. We re-signed Pittman, and I'm guessing Pierce will be better with Richardson throwing the deep ball. Downs also did good his rookie year. Dulin will be back as well. I wanted to get a WR, but it's not as big of a need as some people are thinking IMO.

Going to do my first mock draft for the year. This one has no trades as I'm going to make it simple with just the 7 picks we have so far (one in each round). Round 1: Quinyon Mitchell CB, Toledo Round 2: Marshawn Kneeland, EDGE, Western Michigan Round 3: Cole Bishop, S, Utah Round 4: Luke McCaffrey, WR, Rice Round 5: Tanor Bortolini, OG, Wisconsin Round 6: Garrett Greenfield, OT, South Dakota State Round 7: Gabe Hall, DL, Baylor Here's a mock draft that I think may do that would benefit the team heavily. Get our elite CB, get an EDGE that can possibly play some right away and be ready when Dayo and Paye hit FA next year, Bishop is an explosive S that could possibly start immediately, McCaffrey is a really solid WR that can run and catch the ball, Bortolini can play C or G and is really athletic, Greenfield is a solid developmental tackle that has nice athletic traits, and Gabe Hall is a lottery ticket with a high RAS score in the 7th that might be had at a bit of a value.

Since you're calling me out, I'll do one. I've been doing the Gavin Mock Draft the last few days. I have no problem showing my own draft.

Latu could be our pick at 15. Good RAS score at 9.19. Pro Ready, can play football now. He has injury concerns which may cause him to fall to 15 to us. I think he's a possibility.

He's had major hits every year though. It's just more obvious since he took Stroud and Anderson at two and three. Again, it bothers me that people are saying it's "just luck" that the Panthers didn't take Stroud. That generally happens every year that good or great players fall past other players that aren't as good as that position. They were the 2nd worst team because of the QB position. However, they fixed that quickly in half the time it took Ballard to fix it for us (and we don't know for sure if Richardson is the guy yet where it's almost guaranteed at this point Stroud is the guy). Caserio is just as good as Ballard in the draft to boot and he's aggressive in FA as well to build around Stroud. This is what a lot of the Texans talk is about from people (including me).

I'm thinking there is a good chance we go EDGE in the first round now. The talent at that position drops off after the first round.

Yep. Pretty ironic it happened this way.