John Waylon

I just don’t want to stunt AR’s growth in any way with undue pressure. I don’t want him to have to develop that same Superman mentality (no pun intended,) that Luck had to, and Peyton before him had to as well. And the organization has made it a point that they want to avoid that as well. Richardson is still a very young player. And I don’t mean as in his age, I mean his time playing the QB position. He’s still a very young player and his plate is already full enough with learning all that goes along with that. One of the best ways we can help him on game day is to give him a defense that doesn’t go out and cough up more points when he comes to the sidelines. With a guy like Luck or Peyton we had guys who had trained their whole lives in the QB arts and had plenty of experience. Richardson really hasn’t. I don’t want to start getting into big deficits where Richardson has to come out and throw a ton and start forcing him into making mistakes he might not otherwise. The other big factor at play here is that our division isn’t getting any easier in the foreseeable future. Myself personally, I’m definitely weary of the Texans and what Ryans is building down there. I think Stroud is going to be a very tough out for a long time. While we’re standing still, they’re getting markedly better. Too many around here overlooking the Texans because “we’re going to get better in our second year”. Ok, so are the Texans. So we’re just giving up ground to them in this holding pattern while we wait to see what Richardson turns out to be. Like you, I don’t have any faith in Bradley as a DC, but how could he ever have a chance with what he had to work with last season and being given again this season and some rookies? What DC could have success under those perimeters? There’s just not many masters served by standing still like we seem to be so content to do.

I’m not even upset that we didn’t make a major splash on defense. We didn’t need to hand out the biggest deal in defense, or even a top 5 deal on defense. But something measurable that helped make us better. When I heard we were in on the Sneed trade I was content. No issues making a trade for someone who will come in and make an immediate positive impact. In fact, I trust Ballard to do that more than I trust him to hit in the first two days of the draft. Buckner is a better addition to this defense than anyone else Ballard has added in the draft. And wouldn’t you know which unit on our defense is the one we can actually consider a strength… 🤔🤔🤔 But when the news that we weren’t in on Sneed broke, so did my patience. This * is sitting on his hands running it back with a unit god and everyone has identified critical issues with and is apparently trying to fix those problems with more draft picks, which history tells us is most likely a dead end with Ballard. Our rookie QB is already going out there with a world of pressure on his shoulders before the ball is even kicked off. Sitting by idly while this defense stagnates or god forbid gets worse, does absolutely no favors for Richardson because now he has the added pressure that in the event that he or the offense are struggling the defense is gonna probably go out there and give up 3 if not 7. Don’t just willingly throw him out there and make him have to try and play with the same mentality that Luck did, that didn’t work out so well last time around. If a GM wants to build through the draft that’s fine. But when you miss in the draft and your team suddenly has an issue, you need to correct that issue in free agency. Otherwise the issues keep being issues, and nothing changes. When you do what you always do, you get what you always get and that’s where we’re at with Ballard. All because he can’t figure out any way to help his team with top 5 cap space before the start of FA. People defend that we retained many of our own, and they equate that to being effective because “we were just a couple plays away from getting in last season”. We were just as many plays away from going 6-11 or 5-12. That’s a flimsy argument and it can make a quick turn and cut back the other way real quick. Ballard has been all about how “it’s not about just one guy” since the Luck debacle concluded, but if we’re running it back with this sub-par defense and hoping Richardson being healthy is the thing that gets us over the hump we got hung up on last season that sure feels like it’s about just one guy. Again. It’s just more and more and more of the same old % that landed us here to begin with, on multiple levels.

You can hamstring your QB by not doing enough on the other side of the ball and making his life more difficult than it needs to be. See: Manning, Peyton Luck, Andrew

It’s not the offense I have my concerns about. We have a top their RB and we got back to some quality blocking up front last year. The line depth isn’t great, but there’s so few truly quality linemen in the league these days that there aren’t even enough quality starters for all 32 teams, so we’re always going to have mostly spare parts players at O-line depth. You have to hope to get one maybe two quality backups and then hope you don’t have to trot them out there. I wish we had a #1 WR that scores more often than my wife has a cycle, but whatever. We bought that farm and it bears what it bears. We’re likely going to spend yet another premium pick on the position in this draft, and the luck of the draw is on Ballard’s side this time because of the depth at WR in this draft. Maybe the third premium pick spent on the position in the last 5 years is the charm. The TEs have shown some promise, and Woods has all the tools you could ask for at the position. We just have to see if he can finally put any of it together, or if he’s another one of “those” day 2 picks. If Woods doesn’t pan out, Granson and Ogletree can be guys you can throw to, but they’re not game-changing guys a defense has to do any specific planning for when they play us. They’ll keep us afloat, but they don’t actually make us measurably better. JAGs at a position where you can squeak by on that. I don’t mind that we haven’t gone offense in FA. I actually don’t really appreciate the Flacco signing because we heard all the chatter about how we needed to get a backup that we didn’t need to totally re-design the offense around. I’d have much rather spent less on a backup with a comparable play style to AR and allocated that money elsewhere instead. Ideally we won’t need a backup QB this year because ours is out there. Even if Flacco is forced out there this season it’s not like that’s going to be a magic fix for smooth sailing to a division title and/or the playoffs. In the end he’ll be able to keep us somewhere in the middle, which is the same exact results we’ve had already, multiple times. Yay for that, I guess, but taking a chance at getting better would have been a better use of money. The defense is where the mess is right now. They go out there and bend, bend, bend, and then break. The pass rush, despite the record sacks last season, was lacking and there’s been no dispute on that. The secondary was a hot mess. We started guys who should have struggled to make a roster for most teams last year. They’ve seemingly let Blackmon hit the bricks, it sure would be a lot of egg on the face if that plan backfired and whatever they intend to do at the position (be it give Cross a chance, or draft a guy,) blows up in their faces and the defense just gets worse yet for it. The LBs aren’t the biggest dumpster fire of a unit we have, but an upgrade over Stuard shouldn’t upset anyone. The IDL was probably the least of our pressing needs on defense because Buckner and Stewart have been the steady hands on our defense, as long as no one is serving a suspension. But that’s the one unit we have spent any measurable money on. And then they turned around and brought one of the guys who absolutely sucked at the position last year when they had to run him out there back. The secondary or pass rush is where a move needed to be made last week. Something, anything to just attempt to make it better. Sure, we can address those positions in the draft but who in the hell still trust’s Ballard to get it right in the draft at those spots? We’ve seen him spend premium picks at the position and come away with spare parts plenty of times already. Not again, please. We’ve seen him take swings on Turay, Lewis, Blackmon, Hooker, Wilson, Basham, RYS, Banogu, Odeyingbo, Paye, and Cross at these positions with premium picks. Of that list only 3 of those names even remain on the team, Cross has been kept so far away from the field at times it’s like he’s been in the witness protection program, and Paye and Odeyingbo are setting our pass rush on fire so much that pretty much everyone agrees that we need to upgrade our pass rush, and substantially. Do I want to throw more lime green RAS bars at these positions with premium picks in the draft to fix the problem? # no. He’s tried. And tried and tried. Turns out he’s just not very good at it. All those underwhelming names listed above had pretty lime green bars next to their name when we drafted them, and how has any of that worked out for us? So go out and get a guy who has shown proven results on tape in the league already because we’ve seen the attempted draft fixes, and they haven’t worked. Stop chasing the exception instead of the rule. It’s insanity. The same thing repeatedly not paying off.

How is he ever going to get us anywhere when we’re giving up ground in the division and just running it back with a team that wasn’t good enough to make it already? “Let’s see if you’re the real deal, kid. Here’s a team we’ve done nothing to help, now go take them to the playoffs!” What? No. Make the team better and give him all the help you can. You don’t hold off on fixing obvious flaws with your team until you have a QB. you stunt the growth of a QB by throwing him out there and saying “yeah we know multiple units on this team are the %s and need fixed.” Are we really ok with wasting a QB on a rookie deal because we waited to see what he turned into before we worried about getting some starting corners and safeties? Thats silly. These things are not mutually exclusive and can (and should, furthermore,) be done independently of the other.

No. But we’ve let the market of players who could come in and make an impact dwindle to nil. Now it’s down to bargains and bandaids. This is exactly how the Eric Fisher debacle started.

That is absolutely how I took it and I don’t expect that from you, so if I took it wrong then I apologize, but it came across that way to me in real time. No hard feelings, it’s just football. We’re passionate in our own ways.

No, not at this moment. Even if the wheels fall off and Richardson looks every bit a rookie this season he’s safe. The third year is when the heat would start to rise.

Then just walk away. Why make the edit to add? If you don’t want to participate in something any longer, don’t. You had to try to act like you were taking the high road by letting everyone know you were walking away. Or just say “agree to disagree” and move on. “It’s not an airport, no need for departure announcements”

There’s no reason for the passive aggressiveness that a thread about Colts FA has also included criticism of Chris Ballard and an assessment of his job. Of course it would. It was always going to. And you somehow can’t participate because of that? Whatever. I’ve never treated you with anything but respect, but that was lame and I’m blunt enough to tell you that. No disrespect intended, but no nonsense intended either. I shoot as straight as it gets, and that’s lame. This FA period is just another example of why Ballard is doing a bad job with this team overall. It should not matter what thread that is discussed in when it’s the same darn thing.

No. We’re just down to the bandaids and bargains. Again. With a lot more money wrapped up in a team that didn’t make it last year, while the team that beat us in the division has taken a step forward. You know, again.

Oh get off your high horse. As shocking as this might be, the Colts FA discussions directly include Ballard and his philosophies on not doing anything to make this team any better. it’s not the end of the world if there’s some spillover. If we went to the Ballard grievances thread to talk about FA you’d just whine that we’re talking about FA in that thread. They’re subjects that are intertwined at the hip. One is responsible for the other and they both share the same root subject. It’s the same darn thing.

No. An entirely different conversation about what? He misses in the draft on guys like Banogu and Wilson and then he doesn’t do dick to fix those issues down the line when they turn out to be much less help than we actually need. Now we still need pass rush and corner, even all these years later. If you can’t find a guy in the draft then spend a little money in FA and get someone. We’ve seen he can do it with guys like Ebukam and Houston, he’s not a totally negligent talent evaluator, but his team building philosophy is well established, it’s flawed, and we’re going to be stuck in the middle as long as it is allowed to continue.

Thats not the point. Nor am I saying Ballard should emulate grigson, so don’t try to pull more misdirection nonsense with that. You said, and I direct quote: ”his FA approach is the approach that every GM has taken since he became owner.” Which is absolutely not true. Not even a little bit true. If every GM has taken that approach Ballard and grigson would not be polar opposites. Because he’s 54-60-1after 7 years and relies on running it back with rosters with clear issues he simply refuses to do anything about other than drafting guys with lime green bars and hoping for the best. What good are guys like Leonard, Smith, Pittman, and Taylor if THIS is what we do with them as a team? We’re just wasting those guys because “we like our guys” in other rooms even though everyone under the sun is pointing out as an issue. And it’s never going to change.

And let’s just be honest with ourselves: some of his 2nd rounders would have been vast improvements if only they had ever been able to attain “JAG” status.

Too many of Ballard’s second rounders are.

Also, grigson and Ballard could not be any farther apart when it comes to their FA approach so take that last sentence and just go throw that one in the trash, because it was a flat-out lie.

Well he can’t be a bust this year then, can he? We’re talking about in the hypothetical situation that he doesn’t pan out, not whatever is about to happen in September.

If Richardson is a bust there’s a 0% chance he keeps his job. What owner in the league would keep a GM for 10 years with no division titles, who obviously can’t land a QB to do what he wants? We’ve sat around for over a year now and talked about how tied to Richardson Ballard is with absolutely no dispute, and now all the sudden he’s magically not?! No. If Richardson is a bust Ballard is going to be someone else’s problem. There is a 100% chance.

Oh what the #? What the * #?

It’s entirely justified. I love Richardson. I love what I’ve seen, I believe in him as the guy. But we need to see him on the field this year. He was injured in every game he played last year. All 4 of them. 😑 It’s still early to crown him as the savior. We need to see he’s durable enough to earn wear the crown, and that’s a very real and valid concern heading into this season. Hopefully he is. Would love to see it. Would love to see him light the league on fire this year. However, that’s not a given, and in the event (just in the hypothetical event,) that it doesn’t work out with him, Ballard has done nothing to make this team any better than it was in December when they lost the division to the Texans. The a Texans who actually have done things to get better since taking the division away from us in our house in December.

Bargain bin bandaid Ballard and his little buddy the binder. Just keep throwing lime green RAS bars at the problems and hope for the best.

We won more games last year because we actually had more than a loaf of bread at QB. Matt Ryan showed up with the stink of grizzly death permeating around him, and we finally had a coach who wasn’t a complete and blithering simpleton. We absolutely did not win any more games because of anything our defense did. In fact, we probably would have won more games last year if our defense hadn’t sucked on average. Yeah, let’s run that back.

I saw the work our own guys could do last year. Every awful drive of it. Bend, bend, bend, and then break. They didn’t cut it. Anyone who didn’t spend last season stuck on the dark side of the moon didn’t need much help to arrive at that conclusion Putting 0 effort into fixing that doesn’t actually fix it. We can’t even bring guys in for a visit and at least pretend to make an effort. Something about the definition of insanity and doing the same thing over to the same results or something like that…

If Richardson busts, I’ve no interest. None. 0. Less than 0. No matter what pick we end up with and what prospects are available to us at that pick. We could have a 20 year old Peyton Manning available to us and I wouldn’t have any interest in seeing Ballard get a chance to make that pick. We’ve seen it. We’ve seen every bloody bit of what he’s capable of, and it is not good enough. We've seen that there are multiple facets of his process as a GM that are critically flawed, and that’s just not going to cut it. It hasn’t cut it. I have no interest in this team continuing to swing and miss on him while he swings (or sits by idly,) and misses on improving this team. That is not a recipe for success.