stitches

Ballard is a fan of players with positions mismatching their talent at the NFL level. For example Marvel Tell was a safety in college but we drafted him to be a CB for us. @Superman just mentioned Ronnie Harrison. Rodney Thomas was a linebacker in Yale... Julian Blackmon played more at CB than Safety in Utah. In general, it seems like Ballard and his scouting staff is evaluating not just their play at the positions they play, but also their traits and possible transitions to other positions if those traits translate better at a new position in the league. So, to answer your question - no idea about those specific players, but IMO Ballard is very open to picking players and moving them to other positions if he thinks they will be better suited there and if he thinks there is unexplored value there...

Happy new year, everybody! Wish you all the best in the new year

Merry Christmas all!!

Ballard's best decision in the off-season was probably picking Steichen as his HC. And that's before we know how AR will pan out. If he does, this is a great way to change the fortunes of your team - finding two keepers at the most important positions on the team.

As much as my curiosity makes me want to know what exactly they did, ultimately this is probably the better way to handle it. Everybody who needs to know knows what they did, no point to add extra drama if it's not needed.

I mean... most of the players we are talking about were taken with Brian Decker's approval.

I would half agree with this. The sense of leadership is emerging from the new coaching staff. And the myriad of suspensions to me is a sign that such leadership has been lacking in the last few years.

#leadership And since it feels like there is lack of leadership on the roster, it's nice to see the coach taking the lead here and hopefully building on it for the future.

There were rumors floating around that Frank didn't hold players accountable and that was especially true about the best players and leaders of the team. And this was shared/hinted/alluded to by some serious people in Colts media(Bowen, JMV, etc)... Of course no way to know for sure, but it tracks with how player friendly Frank seemed to be.

I hate that reasoning... "Oh the QB threw a bad ball? Well I guess you can do whatever to the receiver then... might as well kill him on the spot... cuz you know... the QB should know better". I swear this incident has awakened some of the worst takes I've heard recently.

The more I'm thinking about it, the more * off I get at Mike Mitchell... what an absolutely horrible thing to say the day after your own WR1 got taken out by one of the dirtiest hits of the season.

Yep... If you are going to teach your guys that the only way to defend such a pass is to launch yourself head first into another player, then you are putting not just the other guy in danger but your own players too.

If you cannot teach proper tackling technique and pass contest, you probably don't need to be coaching in the league...

I just rewatched the final 2 minutes since I had to miss them during the game. I freaking love Steichen. He assumed the Steelers will let the time run out since it would have left them something like 35 seconds for a 3 score game otherwise and let Minshew kneel it down. The Steelers decided to be smartasses and called the timeout. What did Steichen do? You could see him on the sidelines * off. "Oh, you gonna play those games?" Two runs down the middle to waste a bit more time and make the FG even easier and he let Gay kick the FG. Steichen has the killer instinct. He doesn't let anything slide and he extracts everything he can from a game. If there is a coaching thing to do to give the team an edge he will do it. Love it.

Agreed... The only thing that's a huge negative is AR's injury and him missing on opportunities to get experience and development during the season. But other than that... I love that Shane has brought back the spirit of this team after they seemed so soulless by the end of last year. This team seems to have character and some juice. IMO we still need talent infusion at certain positions if we want to be a serious contender, but it looks like this season at least gave us the answer on the HC position.

You are joking but, it's insane how... playable our OL has been with so many injuries and so much turnover all over the line. Our starting OL has played a grand total of 1 full game and two half games together the entire season. And it has not been all smooth sailing, but we've been... solid. Big props to the players that have stepped up and the coaching staff for getting them ready and putting them in position to succeed.

How are you liking Addison, NFLfan? Has he won you over already?

Bill decided to screw up their tank for Caleb since it become known he will be out after the season. I don't mind that

Levis still has some rookie moments and he just got blown up by a free rusher he didn't see, but I like what I'm seeing from him in general. He looks like an NFL QB. Doesn't look out of place at all... BTW, Levis is taking worse shots than AR took(and a lot of them are self-induced). Just comes to show how chance plays part in injuries...

That was indeed probably our worst game this season. Serious failures in all aspects of the game. Kind of disappointing when chasing a playoff spot, but not entirely shocking when you consider the talent level at some important areas of the team. My position has been that Steichen has been making chicken soup from chicken % for a lot of the season and it was just about time some of our deficiencies showed up. On to the next one...

Minshew is so darn panicky!

Yeah. It's hard for me to formulate the reason I like him so much but you hit the nail - flawed human, battling his demons, sometimes in public, but his heart is in the right place. And some of the things people were bashing him for were actually huge positives in my books(like him trying to free the whale)... And people should never forget that he turned into the conscience of the Colts(moving on from Wentz and then from a coaching staff that had ran its course in Indianapolis) and then the entire league(Dan Snyder) in the span of 12 months or thereabout. And of course, like with everything else he did those things rather clumsily... but in all the noise and turmoil that unfolded in public - HE WAS ACTUALLY RIGHT on the issues. In all of those cases!

Well, they didn't say that exactly, but that's what their ranking shows where Irsay comes at no. 7 best owner in the league. https://theathletic.com/5115078/2023/12/08/nfl-owners-ranking-32-teams/ Thoughts?

I said it before and I will say it again - I think Minshew is the perfect backup, he's good enough to execute your offense and give you a chance to win some games, but not good enough to have unrealistic expectations about being a franchise guy somewhere. If he wants to be here in that capacity, I'm good with Ballard signing him for a couple more years... It seems like him and AR have a very good relationship too, so...