Yoshinator

Would love him at 15. Not a fan of trading up for him. Might have to move ahead of the Jets at 9 with the Bears to guarantee it.

I think the earliest he goes is 10 to the Jets, and the latest is 18 to the Bengals. That's my personal range for Bowers now. We'll have a realistic shot at him if we want him. I wouldn't be disappointed.

That's fair. As I said, I'm using hindsight with a 1-year sample size in the NFL with Bowers. He may be better than them. It's just very difficult to decipher TEs though, and in last years class, you had to think you knew something other teams didn't to take one early in a deep class. That would have been true even if Bowers declared last year. This year, it's an easy decision. Whatever team wants a TE that should be elite will have 1 chance to take him. The rest of the TE class is bad to poor. He'll probably be better than any TE this year. It's just hard to have enough conviction to take a TE in the first round and expect him to be the best TE in the draft. Usually the field will produce a few better ones. Kelce, Kittle, and Andrews are recent examples of that.

Fair enough. I'm just admitting with a year of hindsight from LaPorta and Kincaid that I'd take the guys who I have a one-year sample on in the NFL looking back on it.

I would bet money Bowers is a worse TE than Laporta and Kincaid in the NFL. He can be TE1 in this years class, but to say he'd be the TE1 in that class last year with hindsight is a little crazy. You would also have to remove Bowers year of production this year if that was the case. I would guess Bowers might be the best TE this year as the class is really weak and he doesn't have to beat much. As you said though, last year was a historic class of TEs, and I certainly wouldn't have wanted Bowers as the 1st TE (I know we took AR) as that's just saying you know more about the class than any other team and you are taking the first guy at the position. Generally when a class is deep at a position, I do the tier approach. Put each position in a group of tiers and try to get a guy in the highest tier possible even if it's the last guy in that tier. I'd rather get three tier 1 guys at the bottom of the first tier than one tier 1 guy at the top of the list and two tier 2 guys that that one guy cost me. Just a little Armchair GMing there. Bowers is in his own tier this year. The only tier 1 TE. I would take him at 15 this year. Last year, not so much. With WR and CB being deep, Ballard could get the only Tier 1 TE, and probably a tier 2 WR and CB. With picks in the middle rounds, that's a good haul.

Bowers is really good for the simple reason that the draft is bereft of TE talent (I only have 5 guys that are draftable myself at TE). If we take him, I'd be really excited in real life. If not, we'd probably have to take someone like Theo Johnson in the 3rd or 4th round. The choices are just so low at the TE position in the draft. It would be a great situation if we could draft Bowers at 15 (without trading up), and release Cox to save $6 million to possibly save some money to sign a couple FAs after the draft. That could be used on the top UDFAs, or use it on a couple veteran FAs to fill the holes we don't fill in the draft. Bowers would be a solid pick for a lot of reasons. Honestly too, getting an elite TE is something a lot of the top teams share. Chiefs with Kelce, 49ers with Kittle, Ravens with Andrews, Lions with LaPorta, and Bills with Kincaid are the big 5. I'd like to join that group with the Colts. The more I talk about Bowers, the more I agree with you even more. I'll probably do another Mock Draft with Bowers at 15 and give you a mention.

It can be very frustrating. One HR can ruin a slate for me. You have to spread ownership in a strategic way so you don't get ruined by a bad outcome, but also so your players still make you a profit. I'll always fade a few players that I think are poor choices and are useless in a game for one reason or another, and that can burn me. I'll also make a stand on 4 or 5 players spread among my 10 teams 5-6 times usually each in unique lineups and hope they hit. Then I'll have some 1 and 2 offs of the remaining players most times. It's my daily fun every day during baseball season. Up $7 on draftkings and $15 on fanduel since the start of the season so far.

A small ball team wouldn't be able to compete IMO. You could try it with a team like the Mariners where they have a big pitchers park and solid pitchers that could back up a small ball team, but things would have to go perfect for the small ball to have a chance. Last team like that I remember winning the WS was the 2015 Royals.

I'm a single game specialist on draftkings and fanduel for baseball. Which means I only play one game slates and try to exploit any advantages I can gain. I enjoy making $10 worth of fantasy lineups on one game and watching it, whether it's on TV or on gametracker. That's my version of excitement for baseball besides the Braves. I understand the family dynamic and real life factor of games. Some like them longer, some don't. I like the pitch clock for my own benefit as the quickened games make it a lot more enjoyable for me. I like to watch a whole football game, I didn't enjoy 3 1/2 hour baseball games unless it was the Braves. Even with players on my fantasy teams it was tedious for me.

Small Ball doesn't win baseball anymore. That premise is outdated. The reason the Braves have had the most wins in MLB the last two years is because they hit HRs. HRs always score points, whether it's 1-4. Points win game. Small ball is a tedious exercise that generally takes two or three hits in an inning to accomplish a run. You can try and steal a base, but if you get caught, it's an out and that runner is off base. The Mets tried small ball, and the Braves destroyed them. Look where they are at now. Steve Cohen is apprehensive to spend money in FA now.

As a fantasy baseball player, I love the pitch clock rule as games get done much quicker and there's less time between pitches. I get a lot more action in a lesser amount of time. It's especially fun if I have to watch a game on gametracker, and pitch updates happen in half the time they used too.

Surprised Nico Collins isn't joining in the fun. That's going to be a great top 4 WRs they have this year. They also have Brown and Woods as the 5 and 6. Absolutely insane.

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.