No idea if you consider me Ballard supporter but I think I have a balanced view of his tenure... so I will respond to the questions you posed - how do we know he isn't a middle of the road GM kind of flailing around - he might be middle of the road GM. I don't think he's flailing around. I think he's doing exactly what his philosophy is telling him he should do. How do we know - because he's told us so and almost every move he makes confirms that he's going according to his plan.
NOW... I have big problems with some of his stated philosophies and plans(and I love some other philosophies), but IMO it's pretty easy to see that he actually knows what he's doing.
In most cases Ballard gets outbid for players. This is part of his stated philosophy - he sets a value he won't go over, and doesn't get over it. We can have a problem with that but it is what it is... Also I wouldn't say every other GM is dopey or spends too much money. I think each signing should be judged individually. For some of them IMO Ballard is making the right decision and sets the right price, for others not so much...
For the offensive FAs, IMO the state of our QB position is pretty important aspect of players' decisions. We just cannot expect many offensive weapons who have other options to choose the team with Sam Ehlinger as their QB1. It's just won't happen unless we overpay... and Ballard almost never overpays for outside FAs.
He's not. I don't hold Ballard on pedestal.
Yep, agreed... we have a lot of roster spots to fill... and we have some huge holes in some of the most important and respectively most expensive positions... That's why we have tons of capspace. We are currently paying 1.5M for QBs, 0 for LT, under 5M for DEs, under 15M for the entire DB group, 7-8M for the entire WR group...
Those are the most important positions in football and we are paying under 30M for them combined.