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stitches

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Posts posted by stitches

    2023 Colts and NFL free agency news, rumors, discussions

    in Colts Football

    Posted

    1 hour ago, TomDiggs said:

     

    All valid points and i will be the first to say that my desire to not move on from Ballard is directly linked to he (and his staff's) ability to be good when it comes to the Draft. Because obviously free agency has not been great. There have not been many swings and misses where we gave out big money and missed out, but there haven't been many big swings at all, which is obviously a collective criticism we all make of him.

    Agreed. with Ballard and free agency it's a bit weird... because with most significant signings he's made, he's actually hit.  Gilmore, Houston, Autry, Sheard, Ebron, Rivers. Even Fisher had his good moments. Pretty much the only big miss was Funchess and that's because he got injured week 1.  He just doesn't use FA as much as maybe he should. If he made more signings like these at that success-rate, we would have a better team. 

    1 hour ago, TomDiggs said:

    That being said, in the Howie Roseman example given earlier and, in the team-building philosophy ballpark, Roseman and Ballard have a very, very similar approach.

     

    Roseman has been the Eagles GM since 2010, with the exception of the one Chip Kelly year (2015).

     

    His 1st rounders since then? 

     

    2022 — Jordan Davis (DL)
    2021 — DeVonta Smith (WR)
    2020 — Jalen Reagor (WR)
    2019 — Andre Dillard (OL)
    2018 — No first-round pick
    2017 — Derek Barnett (DL)
    2016 — Carson Wentz (QB)
    2015 — Chip Kelly’s draft (Nelson Agholor)
    2014 — Marcus Smith (DL)
    2013 — Lane Johnson (OL)
    2012 — Fletcher Cox (DL)
    2011 — Danny Watkins (OL)
    2010 — Brandon Graham (DL)

     

    So Howie has made 11 1st round picks in his tenure and of those, 8 of them have been in the trenches. That is a lot. And the only outliers are QB once and then WR twice. We can argue if the Wentz pick was good or bad. It is clear one of the WR picks was bad and the other looks good at least so far. 

     

    But my only point here is that the Ballard philosophy of at least building through the trenches is shared by Roseman (and others), and i was mainly trying to compare to Roseman. 

     

    Now, I will also happily join the "fire Ballard" camp if the drafting prowess tails off and we have more drafts like the 2017 and 2019 drafts that don't pan out well. Mainly because beyond solid drafts, he has not brought a ton of value to the table.

    Yeah, it's more complicated than just the drafts. Teams generally have limited resources for roster building - limited draft picks and limited salary cap. They intertwine a little bit, but in the grand scheme IMO Roseman, especially in the last few years has prioritized the important position much more than Ballard has. QB pick in the second after he already had a supposed franchise QB, Weapons galore in the first 2 rounds(it's actually 3 1st rounders on WRs because he traded 1st for AJ Brown, Goedert, JJAW), big money on WR, CBs and DEs... 

     

    1 hour ago, TomDiggs said:

    But I also recognize that really the thing holding him back is the QB position.

     

    I am excited to see us get someone to stabilize the spot for say 3 years and see what happens then. Even if the guys isn't a total superstar. Even a top-15 to top-10 type of guy would let us see how things look when that critical spot is solved or resolved. 

     

    Because so far, the only major thing that i personally have seen in terms of Ballard's evals that I truly disagree with is that he de-emphasizes the importance of WR seemingly and that he also feels like he can't get behind some of the shifty smaller guys (which i do think we would benefit from in many cases).

     

    That is what makes this draft so exciting and fascinating for me as a fan. 

    Yeah, this draft has a lot of shifty small guys, I'm almost certain he won't draft one of them though... but lets see... Ultimately the story of this draft will be the QB, if he hits on the QB, this draft will be a success... if not... it's very possible this will be the last QB he will draft for the Colts. 

    • Like 3

    2023 Colts and NFL free agency news, rumors, discussions

    in Colts Football

    Posted

    1 hour ago, VikingsFanInChennai said:

    Regarding the misses, and rate at which all GMs miss, I think it could be true for GMs being in that position with one or more franchises. It could be very well true for all GMs for most of the position groups, excluding QB position. 

     

    If we consider the QB position hit and miss, I'm pretty sure not all GMs would've the same rate. It would be sugarcoating to include QB among all other position groups and come up with the study results to show all GMs have not much difference in hits and misses. 

     

    I think the Reality is if we take QB position alone into the account, some GMs would have very poor rate, some GMs would've similar rate to other positions due to drafting average starters or starters for only few years, some GMs would just simply sway away from drafting QBs for the fear of not getting it right (Vikings former GM Rick Speilman, Ballard so far), some GMs just wouldn't have got the right opportunity, time, draft picks and draft class at the same time (could include Ballard? if we're being generous), very few would've very good hits (but among those could be terrible GMs who just happened to have their team picking at top 3 overall draft picks and eventually getting the right franchise QB at the right time). 

    Well the thing is... if we only take QBs... or any position really we significantly reduce the sample size and it becomes almost meaningless as a predictor. Example - Ryan Grigson is 100% at drafting QBs because he only drafted 1 and it was Luck. Was he good at drafting QBs or was he lucky that the only time he drafted one he was in position to draft the most no brainer pick in recent history of the draft? You generally need large samples to know how good you are at drafting and by the nature of the position pretty much no GM in the league has large enough sample of drafting QBs for us to know for sure what their expected hit-rate would be. 

     

    1 hour ago, VikingsFanInChennai said:

    There are too many factors in hits and misses on QBs, but I can say one thing for sure. The more you try at the top of the draft or at least by early day 2 in the draft, the more the chances of getting a franchise QB, at least one who ends up around above average level in the league for more than 5 years. 

     

    If the GM doesn't try often or at all, then more chances he ends up as bad and fired, like Speilman got out of the league after going FA QB Carousel too many times after Teddy Bridgewater got injured. 

     

    GMs and their staff, scouts and coaches also need to evaluate QB draft prospects pretty well to have a good success rate, and QB evaluation is the most difficult part of predicting college prospects transitioning to the NFL. 

     

    One other thing successful GMs do is re-evaluation of their own processes on QB scouting, and evolving with how college systems change, what concepts NFL evolves to combine college football concepts, how college QBs have evolved (for example, athleticism and mobile) and how all that affects the QB prospects coming out of college over the years and decades transitioning into NFL. 

     

    It's a tough job, and that's why GMs need to take more chances. As long as the NFL owner is supportive, GM should try often whenever their evaluation hits on a college prospect and GMs should continue to evolve in their evaluation process. 

    On this I absolutely agree. The answer to having a miss at QB or risking a miss in the draft is not to stop trying... it's the complete opposite - try again! And if it doesn't work - try AGAIN. Keep trying until you hit, because the alternative is worse. The alternative is QB purgatory. 

    2023 Colts and NFL free agency news, rumors, discussions

    in Colts Football

    Posted

    @TomDiggs @VikingsFanInChennai good posts, I will only talk about one part of it though - the misses in the draft. This is counter intuitive but some studies suggest that over the long term all GMs(with some outliers) have about the same success rate with picks in the draft and short term sways one way or the other are mainly due to chance. In other words, you can expect every GM to have similar success in the draft over the long haul. They will all have hits and they will all have misses and when you draw the line the rates will be similar. So what becomes important is other things like - what positions do they value? Do they get good value in trades? Do they trade back enough(this is something Ballard has done well with) because it's better to have 2 picks in the 40s than 1 pick in the 20s? Do they enter the draft with no major needs so they can freely draft according to their board, etc.? 

     

    I still think the biggest thing that is hindering Ballard is his team building philosophy and what he values and what he thinks wins in this league. 

    • Like 4

    2023 Colts and NFL free agency news, rumors, discussions

    in Colts Football

    Posted

    18 minutes ago, richard pallo said:

    Monday must be LaMar day.  I just read three different articles on LaMar and they all mention the Colts as a team that could still be involved and gave reasons why it might happen.  Two of the articles suggested that it could happen on draft day after the 1st two picks are taken.  The reason being is if the Colts have a target in mind and that quarterback goes 1 or 2 then they might trade for LaMar instead of settling for quarterbacks 3 or 4.  One article even went so far as to say that if they are sitting at 4 and the choice comes down to LaMar or Stroud, Levis, or Richardson the choice becomes clear you trade for LaMar if you can.  A lot could happen between now and draft day.  He could sign an offer sheet and it could be matched or not.  So something happening draft day seems like a long shot.  But it’s the NFL so who knows.  Maybe someone will post the articles.  All good reads.

    And what picks are the Colts going to give in case the Ravens don't match the offer? And what happens if the Ravens actually match the offer? The Colts are left with Gardner Minshew as starter and Sam Ehlinger as backup for the season? 

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