ColtAndOrioles

Yup it's called the yips. Happens in golf on short putts all of the time. AR needs to stay after practice and throw 100 short passes every day until he over comes this. They get paid $millions to play a game. It shouldn't be that difficult to do. I am not sure if they don't want to abuse his shoulder or what but he NEEDS to practice it until his mental block is gone and his mechanics are right. He has the technology.

I totally disagree. SS has to tell him before the kickoff that if he catches the ball in the EZ, to run it out just to kill the 2 minute warning. I mean this is basic coaching 101. SS just seems like he is not very smart imo. I also don't feel as if he holds people accountable, similar to Reich. He takes JT out for the entire 4th Q last week for example, the Colts best players. Beyond stupid. And his obsession with running the ball up the middle....very Reich like....and not getting JT into open space is mind bottling.

My observations..... SS is imo not a very good coach right now. Perhaps he can learn but I am not liking what I am seeing. For one, his play calling is very very vanilla. Pretty much Frank Reich 2.0. Where is the movement. Motion. Confusion? Remember the talk about how great the AR and JT combo would be with rpo's? I don't see anything. He was supposed to be an offensive guru. Innovative. New. I don't see anything from him that says that at all. He does not play to AR's strengths and instead seems to want to make him into a drop back QB. It wasn't until the 4th Q that he started to play to his strengths and you could see AR's confidence rise like the morning sun. His entire demeanor changed. He actually got excited. And for heavens sakes....use Taylor much much more. Get him some swing and screen passes. USE THE GUY. He is the best player on the team by far and yet is used half as much as he should be. And let me say this. The play right before the 2 minute warning. The kickoff? To me SS not telling the returners to run the ball no matter what just to get rid of the 2 minute warning? A coach should be fired for that. I was screaming at the TV before the kickoff to make sure the returner takes the ball out of the endzone. That is SO BASIC of an instruction to tell your kickoff team that I am sure it is something that would happen in pee wee football. The fact that SS failed to do that throws up so many red flags imo and is exactly something that Frank Reich would do. I don't think he is very quick on his feet and his ability to adapt is poor. And for a QB guru? AR seems to be regressing. Not progressing. AR imo will be fine. More than fine. He has all the ability in the world and I really have to wonder why there are so many anti AR fans on this board. He has played all of what? 7 games? Who do you guys want instead as qb? Wentz? Rivers? He is young. Very talented. Very high ceiling. I will take my chances with him. I really wonder though why he is not progressing with his accuracy. Throwing a ball to a WR is something he has been doing since he was a kid. It is almost like fielding a ground ball in baseball or shooting a free throw. It should be a very basic thing to complete a 5 yard swing pass. If I thought he was overwhelmed mentally or just did not have the talent to throw I would say that. But he normally makes good reads and does not seem at all flustered by NFL defenses. But his ball just sails. Again, for an NFL Qb guru, SS is really failing AR in this regard. AR is not Jeff George. He is much smarter and actually cares. Chicago is not a very good team and the Colts would not have probably won against many other teams but a win is a win so it is what it is.

The only real difference so far is there have been no real designed runs from AR this year compared to last. Almost all of his runs this year are from qb scrambles. He needs to run. If he gets hurt he gets hurt. But you cannot make him a drop back qb. Running is what makes him special.

What are the salary cap implications of cutting Gay? To me he is a no go. Hasn't really performed or been healthy other than that one game against the Ravens. Just watching the he and the ND grad kick this year since pre season? The ND guy looks much better.

I simply don't like the way that Steichen has been using AR this year. He is trying to make him into a drop back QB like a Manning when that is not his strength. We have seen very few rollouts this year. Very few screen passes. Almost no RPO's where he was given a legit chance to throw. Remember all the talk off season how the JT and AR combo would be unstoppable? How many times have we seen that? Hardly at all. More and more his offense is reminding me of Reich's. Supposed to be innovative but it is the opposite.

AR will be a really good QB imo. Better than really good. He has very athletic traits both running and throwing. He cares and has a will to win as well. And seems very level headed. Give him 17 games at least for gods sake.

The issue I have with SS so far is this. When he was brought in I thought we would have more of an Andy Reid/Mike McDaniel head coach on offense. Lots of motion. Configurations. Formations. Etc. Interesting stuff. New stuff. We have seen nothing of that. And remember how all we heard all off season was how dangerous the AR/JT combo would be with the RPO's. We have seen NOTHING of the kind. So far we have run a VERY vanilla and boring offense. I don't see any sort of a innovation at all. It really reminds me of a Reich offense. Who was also supposed to be an O guru like SS. Until he wasn't. Part of it may be because they don't want AR hurt again. But wow is the offensive game plan terrible.

100%. If the CEO of a company provided no growth, whether that be to the stockholders or on the bottom line accounting wise, after 8 years? He would be fired. In fact he would have been fired after year 3 or 4. Luck gave him an excuse and that has kept his job safe for the past 4 years. But he has proven to me that he has no ability to build a SB winner. He is a .500/average GM. And he is fine with that. He collects a nice paycheck and gets told by the Indy media and a lot of message board posters how great he is. I honestly think if he came from an organization like the TB Bucs? Instead of the Chiefs? He would have been fired years ago. But the mystique of the KC Chiefs gives him credibility.

Have they really though? Almost every gm signs a guy or 3 cheaply during the off season that starts and gets some action and people say "wow, that was a good signing". But as I said, almost all GMs do that. The difference is signing difference makers. Ballard doesn't do that. Ever.

I have always thought Ballard was very overrated going back to 7 years ago. He is too full of himself and unable to change. Never liked his cocky attitude. Polian had a right to be cocky. Not CB. Who has won nothing. And the "if I get fired so be it" quote was enough for me. He has checked out. If he cannot see that his build the trenches narrative doesn't work in today's NFL by now? He never will. He would make a very good scout. But he is not a good GM.

I think the move to remove Taylor from the game for the entire 4th Q was one of the worst in game decisions I have ever seen a coach make. On any level. He was tearing up the D and had made 2-3 catches very smoothly that were actual catches he should make. He had drop where he was hit as soon as he caught it and another where the throw was way behind him and he was about to get crushed if he made the catch. That was on AR. If you are going to take out a top tier RB for that? For 2 scrubs? Then I guess Pittman and AD should have been taken out as well and replaced with 2 scrubs because they are actually paid to catch the ball and both had drops. Just a terrible move.

I think AR will be fine. He shows a lot of pure talent. I think people forget how hard it is to be a top NFL QB. Give him a full year of not being injured so he gains experience and imo he will be a top 5 NFL qb within 2 years.

To me it is pretty simple. When a GM says in a pre season press conference that he was fine with being fired while sticking to the same plan that he has had for 8 years and that simply has not worked? Or his in own words-"so be it"? As an owner you simply have to move on from that. Pure and simple. IF I was Irsay? When he said that I would have fired him right then and there. Ballard is very obviously is not interested in building a real winner. What he is more interested in is playing just enough .500 football to keep his job. I don't believe for one second that the extensions he gave the past few years to his draftees are because he thinks they are great players. But what he does by doing that is he creates a false aura and narrative that because he pays his own draft picks big money? That means he must have drafted well. It is a facade meant to keep his paycheck coming in. In truth many of his draft picks are just plain average to very bad. The only difference is now he realizes that his little game has about run it's course. Which is why he is fine with getting fired. No GM, coach, or player should ever say "so be it" getting fired. A person who does is a person who has checked out.