shasta519

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.

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.

Now it's $8.5M. Gotta say...never saw that coming.

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.

With the DeFo news, I think we can probably assume DT is not an early round option.

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.

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.

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.

Spotrac has DeFo at $22.75M for this year. But I don't remember what his previous cap hit was prior to the extension.

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.

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.

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.

https://www.indystar.com/story/sports/nfl/colts/colts-insider/2021/03/15/colts-news-denico-autry-agrees-3-year-contract-titans/4702512001/ 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: https://coltswire.usatoday.com/2021/03/15/nfl-colts-free-agency-denico-autry-titans-decision-contract-structure/ 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.

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.

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.

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?

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Ballard said, even if they had made the playoffs, there would have been discussions about moving on from Wentz. Moving on from him was def the right move organizationally, but I didn't care for how it was done. That part wasn't on Ballard though...that was on Irsay and the media.

Agree with the overall idea about good QBs helping WRs produce. But to Nico's credit, he was flashing in year 2 with Davis Mills at QB, despite groin and foot issues limiting him to only 10 games. He avg'd nearly 48 yds/game, playing 71% of the snaps. Pierce hasn't really dealt with injuries and in year 2, he avg'd 30 yds/game, playing 95% of the snaps with Gardner Minshew. I think AR's arm strength could help Pierce get a few more shots downfield, but I also don't think it's going to suddenly unlock him as a good WR (you didn't say this, but it's something I hear often on Colts Twitter and content).