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stitches

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Everything posted by stitches

  1. Absolutely... Ballard just is very high on... himself. He likes the guys he has liked before and there is noone that likes his guys like he likes them(thus he's the one resigning them)... My soccer team is in deep financial trouble and can't afford much of any new signings of substance so when asked by reporters about his roster our coach said "If you can't have what you like, you better like what you have". I feel like that with the Colts. Except there is no financial reason for the Colts to limit themselves like that. It's purely philosophical approach by the GM.
  2. I think he paid Johnathan Hankins about 10M per year(30/3) in his first free agency when he was remaking the whole defense. In 2019 he signed Justin Houston for 24/2... and Devin Funchess for 13M... In 2020 - Rivers... In 2021 - none In 2022 - Gilmore In 2023 - none
  3. Spending doesn't mean you will win. You still need to spend smart and you still need to draft well and overall make good decisions. Not spending limits you in your roster construction. I don't know why it's so hard for people to understand. The best teams in the league use ALL available avenues for improving their team. They do not limit themselves artificially with what's possible to achieve. They also concentrate resources into windows of contention. This means at any given time, if you are not spending you are competing against teams that are pouring resources into trying to win it RIGHT NOW. You will just always be at disadvantage because while 1 specific team will need to reload and take their lumps for spending too much in short period of time once in a while, the league as a whole will always have at least a few teams that are in that high spending mode chasing a window for contention. Now... is it possible you strike gold and beat those teams while relying almost exclusively on the draft? It's possible. If you string together a few insane draft classes. But it's not very likely...
  4. Agreed. Tom always brings thoughtful perspective to the forum and I enjoy reading his posts.
  5. We, might... or we might not... or we might lose someone else to injury. It's just what happens in the league. If it's not one player it will be another. It's a violent sport and players will miss games. You know how I feel about AR. I still think he needs improvements but the sky is the limit with him... I don't think there was anybody higher on him than me here. But first thing - he just needs to stay healthy. Downs had a very promising rookie season. Hope he makes a jump in year 2 too... Honestly. I'm not high on this TE group. The rumors about Woods are not great. Ogletree and Mallory IMO are JAGs at best. Which is OK for where they were drafted but they are not game changers. We need better... I guess if you believe in Brock Bowers we should be hoping he's there for us to take in the draft. Cross will need to make the jump because it looks like we might be losing Blackmon. He had some flashes at the end of the year, but he still needs to show consistency over a prolonged period of time. I think Raimann is already very good. I'm not too enthused with the way Ballard has handled the DT position... Steichen was already doing wonders with what he was given last year. IMO the hope is that AR stays healthy and is able to unlock the full potential of what Steichen envisions in his offense.
  6. I don't believe any of this post-hoc spin. He took less to play home. And even if we did believe it - OK... he did take less. What about the 100 other FAs we could have gotten? This is exactly it... it feels like Ballard is not proactive... he's grabbing to the status quo and holding onto it for dear life. Like the status quo has actually given us anything to brag about? The Texans let go of one of their best defensive linemen... to replace him with a better one. The Chiefs let go of one of their best receivers... to replace him a better one... Those are teams that are not happy with what they had(and they were better than us) and tried to actually improve. Could that backfire? Sure. But at least they are trying to compete. What are we trying for? I wasn't the biggest fan of the idea of giving record setting contract to Sneed while also giving up significant draft compensation too. IMO you should only do that for elite players and as good as Sneed is IMO he's not quite at that level. But with that said -yes, there aren't many high level FAs remaining on the market. Because while other teams were busy chasing the high level FAs, Ballard was busy giving 14M contract to a backup nose tackle and resigning his PED implicated 31 year old starting nose tackle 40M contract. I wouldn't hold my breath quite honestly. With the OL there was precedent of them being great previously. With this DL there really hasn't been. We've been at the bottom of the league in creating pressures and affecting the QB for years. And the personnel will be the same more or less. A lot of people putting a lot of hope into the new DL coach. I liked that hire too, but you have to give the guy something to work with and apart from Buckner the rest of the group has never been more than... solid, and in a lot of cases much less than solid. Yep... it always comes back to this... hoping our draft picks will pan out. The problem with that of course is that over the long term most teams in the league have about the same success rate in the draft. And while other teams use all avenues to improve their team(draft, trades, FA), it seems like Ballard has resigned himself to the draft. He will draft and live or die by it. He's just too stuck in his ways and too stubborn to make any significant changes to his approach. That's the problem with Ballard. It's never exactly doom and gloom. I am never worried with him that this team will be horrible and hopeless. I worry that it will be mediocre... forever! Which it has been. He gives you just enough hope for your to think "maybe this year... maybe this guy will get better... maybe this draft pick will pan out", but in reality we are just treading water. Yeah, Sneed could have been good for this defense... oh well...
  7. Yeah, the draft is really our biggest chance to have improvement, but it's actually rare for rookies to be positive contributors. Yep, that's the second biggest hope(or probably the biggest)... It's not over but... I just don't see any significant changes happening. It's just not in Ballard's nature. We should know by now. Some might not be, some will... for example, I am almost certain the Texans will be stronger than last year. Like I said above... I'm just kind of tired of watching the same thing happen every year under Ballard. Ballard is "never finished with roster building" but what does that mean exactly? He will sign C or D free agents that have not been singed in wave 1 or wave 2 of FA... he will get some FA off the streets to compete for spot in October or whatever... But do those moves actually have any serious impact? Do they raise the ceiling of this team. I feel like Ballard has resigned himself to the draft and I can't help but follow suit and just have all my hopes for this team tied to the draft. And this is happening with a QB on rookie deal too... I have no idea why I believed him when he was hinting he might change his approach now that he can afford more things now that his QB is really cheap...
  8. It just feels like I'm having the exact same thoughts and feelings about what's happening with the Colts and Ballard's approach every single year. There hasn't been a single season since... 2020 when I felt like... "oh we got better this off-season... nice" Pretty much the only hope is that Ballard has another 2018 type of draft and that's where the strengthening of the team comes from... but it's just so rare for rookies to be really great positive contributors... it's hard to be optimistic about it... at least in the immediate.
  9. A wash probably... Do we expect them to be significantly different by the time they play?
  10. Is this team better today than it was in December?
  11. So let me ge this right... The Colts and the Chiefs are on the final stretch and about to put ink to paper, but because local reporters got the news before it had actually happened, the petty guy that Ballard is... he deployed Schefter and Holder to push Back and out of spite decided to not do the trade instead... to prove our local insiders wrong. Da * is that? This is insanity...
  12. I think "Destin got it wrong" is a bit too much, but I would say he probably got wrong/misleading info and went with it. He's still young in the business and I bet there are people in the business who wouldn't mind using a young reporter to do their bidding in the media. With time he will learn what sources to trust and what sources not to trust. Because I would bet my left nut no source high enough with the Colts would leak that info before the deal was ACTUALLY DONE... like DONE DONE! Ink on paper DONE. The Colts just do NOT leak that type of info. Especially about big time moves. Ballard learned his lesson from the McDaniels debacle and has significantly tightened up the organization when it comes to leaks of that significance.
  13. I think Holder is much more likely to be right on Sneed than Destin.... for whatever that is worth.
  14. @Restinpeacesweetchloe please do something! We need news!
  15. I am still so baffled about that Fields trade. If you treat him as a pure athlete... if you treat him as a running back... he still must have more value than a 6th round pick. How have the Bears botched it this badly?
  16. Yeah, that organization did him no favors. BTW they have the same people (GM and HC) on top of the organization still so... even Caleb Williams is not safe.
  17. Let me put it like this... if you put Fields in as a RB... he might be more valuable than a 6th round pick...
  18. Yeah... I didn't think Fields is their guy, but what they got is almost criminal.
  19. Literally all of those signings and trades are conditional on the player passing a physical(including the deals the Colts have signed already). This usually doesn't stop a trade being announced if it is indeed done. My guess at this point is - it's not done and likely not going to get done at all.
  20. Hell, Darnold was traded for 2nd, 4th and 6th... How the hell does Fields not get you at least one day 2. Picket got better return... Sam freaking Howell got better pick. HOW?
  21. 👀👀 Am I doing this right? Nice!
  22. When we know how the Colts and Ballard act on the market IMO it's almost certain that either the deal is done or the deal is not happening at all. I don't think I ever remember any big contract being negotiated by the Colts through the media. This just doesn't happen... like EVER. This is not Ballard's modus operandi. He does everything in the dark. When you hear about the deal it's usually already done. So... this line of thinking kind of gives credence to both versions - either the deal is done and just not announced yet(the more time passes the less likely this is BTW), or the Colts are not as close to a deal as a lot of people think and it's possible either agents or the Chiefs are using the Colts to leverage another team to give more(money and/or picks). Honestly. I usually believe in what Destin reports, but in this case it kind of looks to me like too much time has passed without official confirmation and at this point if I had to bet my money on something it's probably that the Colts don't trade for Snead at all.
  23. It's probably conditional of some sort, 3d that becomes a 2nd or 4th that becomes a third if certain condition is met.
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