shasta519
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Posts posted by shasta519
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9 hours ago, OhioColt said:
Earlier in the offseason I mentioned the Colts would be wise to extend Buckner this year and lock him down where he hopefully can retire a Colt.
With the news heating back up around Brandon Aiyuk requesting a trade again and the success we have found with other former 49er's (Buckner, Ebukam) if the updated cap space wouldn't be a tempting topic to add Aiyuk. I would propose a trade back swap our Round 1 picks. Biggest issue with extending Aiyuk is we have a lot of talented players who will be free agents in 2025. Paye would get rookie contract extended. Other player trade option wouldn't mind is acquiring Edge Maxx Crosby.
Very happy to have both Buckner-Stewart for a few more years creating a dynamic defensive unit. Now just need to build around them.
Aiyuk is going to cost quite a bit more than that. He’s a top 10 WR. -
On 4/16/2024 at 9:32 PM, Yoshinator said:
The difference with Mahomes and AR to me is the timeline of the GMs on both teams. Brett Veach was only on the Chiefs for a year at this point before he started building around Mahomes. Ballard is the GM of the Colts for 8 years now and he isn't doing it. With Veach, you can argue it's because he was waiting for Mahomes to get better and he was relatively new as a GM. With Ballard, it's just how he is.
The rosters are similar from that time, yes. I agree. I just think we are fooling ourselves by saying he's going to spend over and over and it never happens. We just come up with a new reason. I'm guilty of it too. I'm actually fine with the offseason besides Sneed. That was inexcusable not getting him IMO, but everything else is ok. We just have to do well in the draft. I think we will take a WR on day 2 or in a trade down (Xavier Worthy maybe). The draft is Ballards bread and butter, so I always know he'll do his best there to help the team.
Right. KC was also a perennial playoff team prior to Mahomes taking over. The Colts are a fringe playoff team at best, until we see if AR can lift the roster.And to your point, Veach took over the summer before Mahomes’ rookie year. Hard to compare how KC’s FO approach with Dorsey at GM (for several years) vs. when Veach took over. It seems like Ballard has been more like Dorsey and Veach might just operate differently from both of them.
If Ballard wanted to follow the Veach KC model, he sure waited a long time to do it once Luck retired.
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On 4/16/2024 at 8:15 PM, richard pallo said:
You could make that argument that he has been aggressive and overpaid when it came to acquiring Wentz and Ryan. Draft picks and money. Two quarterbacks no less. The most important position on the team. So I don’t think you can say he’s not aggressive. He took big swings on those two and missed. But he also traded a 1st rd pick for Buckner paid him and hit a home run with that swing. I think you could say he has taken aggressive swings. I do think having a franchise quarterback leading your team makes it easier to justify taking one. I think he thinks he has that guy now. So I’m expecting a few more aggressive moves going forward. I think they will be calculated and well thought out. And he and Shane will be in lock step when they happen.
DeFo was an aggressive move.But I wouldn’t classify Wentz or Ryan as aggressive moves. Getting Stafford would have been an aggressive move at QB. Wentz was cheaper and PHI was looking to dump him. They didn’t even budge from their initial offer to PHI
And Ryan sort of fell in their laps after they dumped Wentz.-
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23 hours ago, jvan1973 said:
22.75 is before the extension
Now it's $8.5M. Gotta say...never saw that coming.
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1 hour ago, PRnum1 said:
To your point Paye has been improving as well.
He quietly got 8.5 sacks last season.
So maybe Ballard sticks with Paye and get ER depth in the later rounds ?
The thing with Paye is that Ballard has to make a decision on his 5th year option right after the draft. It's only projected to be $13.4M, but the draft could really influence that.
Dayo is also set to be a FA. He hasn't really proven he can be a starter yet. And even as a part-time player, he will cost some money to bring back.
I think something has to give with the ER positions, so a R1 ER is very likely if the board falls that way.
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19 hours ago, Solid84 said:
Colts doing homework.
With the DeFo news, I think we can probably assume DT is not an early round option.
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7 minutes ago, Moosejawcolt said:
So you would take Bowers over the top corner and/or edge or do you mean if they were equal value? Bowers looks good on tape but his size scares me a little for a team that is intent on running the ball. I think we have a lot of flash TE's on this roster already that need some time to develop with Richardson. You look at the TE room and I do some talent there but need time. I look at the corner and edge room and I go meh!!
There are levels to the TE debate. One one hand, the market value of the position hurts the value of an early R1 TE. With the rookie wage scale, they come into the NFL already making good money for the position, so there's no real surplus value. On the other hand, the TEs that you would want to build around don't make it to FA, so the market value doesn't matter as much. So getting one when you can is important.
But then you also see that there are great TEs taken past R1 as well.
Plus, then you have to consider the scheme. Committing a big contract to a RB seems to suggest that this team will be running the ball quite often. How often would they take advantage of Bowers? We saw this unfold in ATL. They spent early R1 draft capital on a TE and a WR...and then ran the ball all the time. So those picks have largely not been maximized.
It seems like the Bowers debate is fully dependent on him falling to #15. Then we can see how he ranks over other prospects available.
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21 minutes ago, MikeCurtis said:
I agree with the concept, but until Richardson is a complete proven entity, I would not give up next year's 1st
under any conditions
Dallas Turner MIGHT be that guy to trade up for........ But he might just fall to us at 15
He would be a PR specialist until he added some NFL muscle
I don't see any scenario where they are giving up next year's R1 pick. It would be an opportunistic trade up that they can likely spread over this draft and next draft.
The MOST we have seen Ballard additionally give up in trade-ups is a mid-late R5 pick. Tyquan, JT, Cross.
For him to give up even a Day 2 pick would be out of character. So it would have to be quite the opportunity.
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2 hours ago, cjwhiskers said:
Deficiencies on D? Give me a break. This defense is more than good enough in an offensive league to win games. Defense was not the Colts problem last year.
The issue seems to be that you think the NFL still cares about defense and low scoring games. Offense need playmakers and the defense just needs to hang on.
Getting a stud offensive play maker would easily move this teams needle far more than adding a stud defensive player.
The most important position on this team is quarterback, agree? What do you do to help the most important position out? Surround him with talent at play making positions.
Anyone who doesn’t look at the transformation of Jalen Hurts getting AJ Brown or Josh Allen getting Diggs or Burrow having Chase as a good comparison for AR needs to remember what’s important in todays NFL, scoring points.
How does one come to this conclusion? They played a bottom 5 schedule and a slew of really bad QB...and still ended up #28 in ppg (for the second year in a row). Realistically, we could be talking about a defense that has a chance to be the worst in the NFL, barring significant development or improvement.
I am good with getting a playmaker like one of the big 3 WRs, but the defense needs serious help. Plus, the core of this team will be 30 or older in no time. So they not only need improvement, but replacements as well.
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16 hours ago, w87r said:
My projection for the Buckner extension cap hit:
Current Cap Hit $22.75m
Extension:(2yrs $46m)
2024 - $17.75m(saves $5m this season)
2025 - $25.5m
2026 - $25.5m
New cap space afterwards:
Spotrac - $17.1m
OtC - $16.5m
***Not official, just my projections
Spotrac has DeFo at $22.75M for this year. But I don't remember what his previous cap hit was prior to the extension.
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I think MAC's value is that he can block. Ballard mentioned something about how hard it is to find TEs that can block. So perhaps he doesn't feel they really have anybody else that they trust at this point.
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4 hours ago, csmopar said:
It is and it sets the field for a potentially more active FA next year IF AR15 pans out
Think it depends on what they do with guys like Dayo, Kelly, Blackmon, Granson, backup QB, P, etc.
Spotrac is projecting another jump to $276M. So if that holds, they should have $53M in cap space right now. That could go pretty fast.
Am curious to see what they do with Paye and his 5th year option.
My guess would be that if next year goes well, we will see one really big move ala 2020. Seemed like that was the initial approach this offseason.
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1 hour ago, Superman said:
I don't think this is that big of a deal. There are some circumstances that make it seem like a different approach, but really it's not.
First, the Colts have always made an effort to sign their own. They just usually sign them before they reach free agency. Using Spotrac's list, those players -- Nelson, Leonard, Smith, Moore, Grover, Speed, Franklin, JT, etc. -- don't factor into to the breakdown of how much a team has spent in free agency, because they sign before their contracts expire. It doesn't even include Pittman because they tagged him.
Second, the Colts re-signed several free agent players to third contracts -- Grover, Moore, Rigo Sanchez, Lewis (4th, but that's because of injuries), etc. Most of them were players developed by the Colts, who had previously signed extensions before their rookie contracts expired.
I think it's as simple as the Colts having a lot of their core hitting free agency at the same time, and rather than extending them before they expired like they have historically, they let most of them play out their contracts in 2023.
And that's kind of what they signaled they would do last offseason. Everyone was asking about JT and Pittman, and Ballard indicated that they wanted to see how the team would respond to the ugly 2022 season, with a new coaching staff, etc. But besides JT and Pittman, there was Moore, Grover, Lewis, Blackmon, Rigo, Pinter, etc., all players with considerable roles on the team that were expiring as well.
If there's any change in approach, it's not keeping their own. It's allowing their own to hit free agency in the first place. And judging from the Buckner extension today, I'd say the standard will still be to re-sign their own players before letting them hit the market, and 2023 was an aberration due the circumstances.
Agree. I think part of that is circumstantial with the bad 2022 season and new HC, like you said. But also, just the sheer amount of guys that need deals within a short amount of time.
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1 hour ago, BProland85 said:
See I actually heard from an ESPN reporter who covers the Titans that the Colts didn’t offer a contract to Autry. It was Turron Davenport who reported that.
I don't know what "strong push" means here, but I would assume numbers were exchanged. If I recall, it came down to the contract structure. Looks like that came from Holder:
What probably impacted what seems like a small detail is that the Colts had multiple guys to re-sign to big deals, like Q, Shaq and Smith at the time. But it seems like they at least wanted to and tried to bring him back.
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1 hour ago, stitches said:
Yeah, that is somewhat notable, but it's probably largely coincidental and product of who was up for new contract this year and the state of the roster and payroll. I guess we will see in future year if there really is any change in approach... either way huge majority of those deals are for non-key players.
It's mostly coincidental and a byproduct of his approach of developing a homegrown team.
But it also tracks with Ballard has evangelized and done since he got here. For it to be a reversal, that would suggest that he hasn't focused on re-signing his own. And we all know that is not true.
I know "we like our guys" is a meme now, but it's been a thing for quite some time.
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28 minutes ago, richard pallo said:
You’re wrong but that’s okay. The numbers this year speak for themselves.
The numbers don't mean anything without context. It's now year 8, so there are going to be more players with expiring rookie deals AND players with expiring 2nd contracts hitting FA at the same time, so more FAs to sign. Next year's FA class would have had 6-7 FAs starters prior to the Franklin and DeFo deals. That's just how it goes.
The money spent on Kenny (first deal), Kelly, Grover (first deal), Shaq, Smith and Q, etc. is not accounted for in those numbers. In 2021, they signed $180M worth of contracts on Smith and Shaq alone...almost what they spent on all the guys they brought back this year.
But it shows $15M on their own FAs in 2021. That's just misleading. And those numbers are what this narrative seems to be based on. While money spent on outside FAs can only count as money spent in FA (aside from a trade).
More players set to hit FA, the more difficult is is to extend them all early (like he has done prior with just about every single long-term extensions he has signed) too.
Ballard has re-signed how own during his whole tenure here. It's why they had so many homegrown guys on 2nd contracts to begin with.
But it's largely the same approach. It just got ratcheted up by circumstances of having the 2020 draft class and multiple guys on 2nd deals hitting FA at once. A similar thing was set to happen next year. "Turncoating" would have been letting multiple guys go and looking elsewhere in FA for replacements.
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25 minutes ago, GoColts8818 said:
So you agree Oke isn’t the only one he’s let walk which was your earlier claim?
He tried to bring Autry back. That was the plan. It's not like he had some different philosophy back then and just let him walk.
Oke is the only notable core player that Ballard didn't try to bring back since his first draft class. But there was a clear reason for that. If the timing was different, we all know he's likely a Colt.
Short of a situation like that, Ballard has always tried to sign his own core players (especially those that are homegrown) and succeeded like 95% of the time. Of course there are always going to be injury situations that change plans.
I mean...the roster didn't magically get to where it is with so many guys from 2017/2018 still here. So I'm clear, you agree with this narrative that Ballard pulled a reversal this offseason?
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20 minutes ago, GoColts8818 said:
Or the ever famous Autry. It’s funny how fans scream about that as the worst move Ballard has ever made but when talking about letting leave people forget all about him. He also let Minshew and Moss walk this year. This year was different because of the number of free agents the Colts had. Normally they don’t have nearly this many in one off-season.
But he wanted to re-sign Autry.
His approach doesn't extend to every player, like a backup QB and backup RB. They aren't starters or core players and there is also opportunity for PT for them as a big factor in staying or going.
But the further we get into Ballard's tenure, the number of players hitting FA in a given year should rise because there are draft classes entering FA, as well as players ending or nearing the end of their 2nd contracts. This is the first true confluence of that.
With DeFo and Zaire extended, you still have Kelly, Dayo, Blackmon and Speed hitting FA. And depending on injuries/retirement, Ballard is likely to re-sign 3-4 of them (actually think Paye will be the one out).
If Ballard re-signs/extends a player the previous August or in March, it's still him signing his own. And this is what Ballard has done. I mean...how many starters weren't homegrown? Maybe 2? And many of them are on 2nd or (now) 3rd contracts.
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1 hour ago, richard pallo said:
You don't get it that's okay. Of course he signs his own players. A few every year but nothing to the extent he did this year. That was unprecedented. BTW he didn't sign Campbell or Glowinski just to name two quickly off the top of my head.
PC was oft-injured and wasn't any good, so that's not really a good example.
Glow WAS signed to an extension at one point. He didn't get a third contract because the OL was already getting big money.
Oke left in FA because Shaq (another Colts player re-signed to a big deal) was in his way, both positionally and financially. If Shaq wasn't here, Ballard brings him back.
Autry left to TEN but Ballard tried to bring him back.
It's like a handful of players (only a couple that were core players) vs. the many core players he has re-signed, especially those that he drafted. Whether he did it in March or the summer is just really just timing, not indicative of a reversal of anything.
Plus, the Colts FAs this year all entered the league in 2017/2018 (Ballard's first two years as GM), so they are just the first group of his core players to happen to be entering/nearing 3rd contracts. There is no other situation to really compare this to.
It's fine, we can just have to agree to disagree on this. But this is "we like our guys" 2.0.
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On 4/13/2024 at 10:55 PM, richard pallo said:
It was a huge reversal this year. But it wasn’t because he just wanted to try something different. He changed because for the first time he liked the players he had on his roster more than any of the replacements he could have brought in. That’s a big statement in itself. Continuity does matter. Shane even said the same thing. All they did was make a couple of changes in position coaches. That’s it pretty much. They are going all in with the current roster along with the return of AR and JT for the year. Shane and Ballard are on the same page here. If Shane wanted to change out some players I think he would have pushed for it and Ballard would have done it. They are two happy and confident people right now with the draft in front of them. Don’t be surprised if they reverse themselves in the draft as well. I can see them moving up in the 1st rd if they really feel adding a certain player can make them more explosive. No more same old same old. Those days are over. Ballard doesn’t have forever. He has his quarterback and his coach. When this draft and offseason is over. I think the Colts will be locked and loaded and ready to go.
Ballard re-signing players is a huge role reversal? 1/3 of the starting roster are guys who have been here since 2019 or earlier. He’s always signed his own. Oke might be the only one he didn’t and that was just because they had re-signed Shaq to a big deal. -
The DET game is easily one of my favorite all-time Colts memories. I can still see the pass to Avery with no time left. It's burned in my brain.
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18 hours ago, Superman said:
I think that's simplifying it too much. The same team started out 0-3. There were problems all season, and the only time things looked good was when the run game was on fire.
The next season, without Covid as a factor, the team pumped up the importance of starting strong. They acknowledged the streak of losing the opener, they acknowledged the streak of losing in Jacksonville. Everyone stared it right in the face and said how important it was to change those two things in the first two games of the season. The team sleepwalked through the first three quarters of the opener, eventually limping to a tie against one of the worst teams in the league. And the next week they got shut out in Jacksonville.
Ballard always talked about not flinching. Reich always talked about being mentally tough and finishing strong. IMO, the end of 2021 and the beginning of 2022 showed that the team had a severe lack of heart, and deficient leadership. It seemed like that was all laid on the shoulders of Wentz and Reich, which I think was a good place to start, but they were not the only problems. The Covid situation was a part of it, but I think what happened at the end of 2021 was a symptom of deeper issues.
Yep. Teams don't just collectively lie down like they did at the end of the 2021 season.
And we can't really blame COVID because it carried over into the following season, even after they supposedly addressed the leadership issues by removing Wentz and bringing in Ryan (a point they beat to death all offseason). And I would argue it was worse in 2022 than 2021.
And then later, even after they removed Reich, Foles was lying on the ground with a concussion (after they let TWO guys have a free shot at him), and Thibodeaux was doing snow angels for 10 secs, not one Colts player showed any heart. Maybe they were just playing out the string, but that was pitiful.
I love Steichen as an offensive playcaller, but I am sort of skeptical that all of these issues just suddenly vanished. While last season was much more fun than 2022, the team still showed a tendency to sleep-walk through games.
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4 hours ago, NewColtsFan said:
FWIW: This story is true. When the Colts signed Funchess, East ranted for weeks about how Funchess had a very high percentage of drops. Then, eventually Ballard gave his FA interview and was asked about it. He commented that (A) Frank said he wasn’t worried about drops and (B) the Colts did their own homework and learned that on the two routs Luck liked most, Funchess had ZERO drops in his career. That sealed the deal for the Colts.
I only remember this because it was the subject for one of my many ongoing battles with East for years.
I did my own fair share of ranting. I believe I called him a bum. But only because I watched a lot of CAR games back then (bro in law is a Panthers fan).
He got hurt, so we will never know what would have happened, but I think he was out of the league like a year later. There’s just not really a place for Funchess-type WRs anymore.
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6 hours ago, RollerColt said:
Irsay seemed to have had his mind made up about Wentz at some point in that season, so yeah I can see this being the case.
Boy it would've been super unpopular though had we made the playoffs and then dumped off Wentz.
Yeah, would have been interesting to see how they maneuvered that. I could see it…if they got embarrassed on WC weekend.But if they made playoffs and then had a good game in the WC round (but still lost), hard to see how they could do it. No chance they cut ties if Wentz's wins a playoff game, right? Like, how could you spin that.
That was the weak QB class too, so it’s not like they could have drafted somebody to push him out.
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Colts offseason discussion / Ballard Grievances (merge)
in Colts Football
Posted
The job Ballard was hired to do changed when Luck retired. The problem was that the philosophy didn’t adjust with it. And I am not even sure it has. The AR pick was opportunitistic more than anything. It can’t after a failed “chips in” season. And they are still mostly just doing the same things…using the draft and building around their own. But if AR is good, maybe we will see other moves.