How do you think Ballard did in his first offseason/preseason

[RockThatBlue]

Do you think he made the roster more talented?

[IndyD4U]

I think the roster improved. Lots to learn still about these Colts 

[B~Town]

Hard to tell with your star QB on ice and not playing a real game but on paper we should be better . I see a lot of growing pains early in the season with back up qbs or a rusty luck and a defense that had played very little together . Just hoping for a late season run when everything starts clicking .

[superrep1967]

It's too early to tell. But I like the youth movement and some of the talent he's brought in. 

[#12.]

Honestly, to date in preseason I can't say I've seen many positive signs or signs of improvement, but we just added another 6 players in the past two days, so it's a work in progress.

[Fisticuffs111]

I'd say he's done pretty well considering. Injuries have made his job tougher so I'm giving him some slack. I've disagreed with a few cuts lately but I did like the guys he claimed off the waiver wire.

I do think this team all in all still has a pretty weak roster but it's hard to turn things around that drastically in one offseason. And I do like the potential on the roster.

[Flash7]

Ballard did a fine job, but ask yourself this. Aside from QB and receiver, which position was difficult to upgrade?

 

We are worse off at TE. We are no better at MLB. We are no better at CB and we are the same at OL, (the most important area to improve upon).

 

He improved the DL (where I give him tremendous credit) and overall team depth, but we really needed more improvement umongst  the starters. Yes, we have some new starters, but not noticeable improvement. Hankins is a potential upgrade, which I am excited about.

 

My overall assessment is that he did a good job, but not stellar. Of course, I could be wrong in my assessment if his draft picks pan out.

[NorthernBlue]

No clue. I won't lie, there's been some moves he's made that definitely made me scratch my head, this recent Dorsett trade being one of them (although I'm starting to come around the idea of it). However I trust his judgment, and think he knows what he's doing. More than I can say of Grigson that's for sure.

 

As for the roster, I think anything would have been stronger than last year. But without a healthy quarterback, and with how young and new the defense is, I don't think our record will exceed last year's 8-8, JMO.

 

Chuck will have is work cut out for him I'll say. 

[1959Colts]

He sure did get rid of a lot of guys from last years team. Which (for the most part) I approve of.

Now the question is, will their replacements be an improvement?  

[csmopar]

28 minutes ago, RockThatBlue said:

Do you think he made the roster more talented?

I think he's done a very good job considering what he's had to work with and thru. We went from one of the oldest, slowest, tired and broken down rosters to a young, motivated, hungry , fast, big and hard hitting teams.  I think the injuries really cost us some talents as we had to cut guys we may have otherwise kept because we needed to carry extra guys at spots we normally wouldn't.  and I can't blame that on Ballard. 

[BlueShoe]

Definitely too early to tell. 

 

Chris Ballard has nearly turned over the roster. It might take some time for these changes to settle. 

 

I don't think we will know this teams capabilities until about half way through the season. Hopefully we can stumble through enough wins to still be alive, and then finish strong. 

 

One can hope.

[Bluesmith]

This is a good question:

 

QB - Unknown.  I want to believe we will be better long term with Brissett, but I would have preferred Morris starting over Tolzien.  If Brissett starts week 1 over Tolzien and shines, then it will prove how little I know about scouting.

 

RB - Improved!  Mack and Jones are clear upgrades.

 

WR - Unchanged. no real movement here other than Aiken who has yet to show his skills.

 

TE - Unchanged.  Glad to be rid of Allen, but not sure Daniels is an improvement over him.

 

OL - Unchanged.  I like Bond, out of necessity, but for the most part we have the same pieces as last year.

 

DL - Improved!  I don't think there is much debate that this is our most improved unit.  Woods and Hankins are clear upgrades, with an eye on Stewart's upside

 

OLB - Improved!  I like what I have seen so far in Simon and Mingo.  We still need to improve our pass rush, or scheme better than last year.

 

ILB - Unknown.  I like what I saw from George, still not sold on Bostic and Morrison

 

CB - Improved!  Like what I have seen so far from Wilson and Hairston, interested in seeing how Desir fits in.

 

S - Improved!  Found a gem in Farley, and Hooker is going to be a baller sooner than later.

 

ST - Regressed?  You don't replace Pat McAfee, and not sure if replacing Overton was worth it.  We will find out.

 

Overall, we went from 4th oldest roster to 4th youngest, so even on units that might be unchanged this season, the ceiling has definitely been raised.  Overall, I think this was an outstanding offseason.

 

 

[aReggie7]

I think the roster is more talented especially on the defensive side. Drafting Hooker, Wilson, Bashman and signing Hankins, Sheard, Simon are some talent upgrades. The offensive side didn't need nearly as much attention except on the offensive line. I feel like the Colts were betting on the young guys on the line improving and based on what we have seen so far that is a bet that doesn't look like it will pay off.

[jvan1973]

I think he pulled a Polian and didn't address the qb position.   I'm not super impressed so far.  I hope he is great going forward

[BlueShoe]

4 minutes ago, jvan1973 said:

I think he pulled a Polian and didn't address the qb position.   I'm not super impressed so far.  I hope he is great going forward

 

Agreed. Ballard can get away with it because it's his first year. If we lose 12 games then he will likely still have a job. 

 

All the pressure is presumably on Pagano.

[RockThatBlue]

4 minutes ago, jvan1973 said:

I think he pulled a Polian and didn't address the qb position.   I'm not super impressed so far.  I hope he is great going forward

Not a fan of Brissett?

[Yeah me]

I think this new regime is as bad as last. They are *. Lifelong colt fan but abour done with their stupidity.

 

[Dingus McGirt]

Ask again after week 17.

[funktacious2]

I feel like this is just such a tough question to answer because I feel like we just won't see the improvement much this year. Most guys need years to gel and develop, so I can at least say that I like that our defense got way younger and had a little more solid depth. What is lacking feels like good starters. But that is why this year is key. We got a lot of young guys on reasonable contracts, so I feel now we just need to add playmakers in the draft and are enough off in cap room to re-sign our top dogs and have some left over to add a guy or two to start and a few more to compete. I hope next year we go hard after pash rush and the trenches. I have to believe next year is the year we finally get a much needed young pass rusher. But the season always has a way of exposing holes we didnt know where there. I wouldn't be surprised to see myself begging for an O-line upgrade in the first for next year.

[AZColt11]

So far, I think pretty good.  You knew coming in he was going to get rid of a lot of Grigson players, and he has.  I guess as of right now 25 players weren't on the roster last season.  That's a pretty good chunk.  And this isn't over.  Not by a long shot.  There will be more to come I'm sure.  He is building this with not just 2017 in mind, but years down the road.  Only time will tell if he's done a good job or not.

[TKnight24]

 

 

[IinD]

He didn't do to bad. We weren't beating NE anytime soon. 

 

This roster was trash if you wanna keep it real. If you want to be politically correct, it was a challenged roster.

 

Gut jobs are messy.

[Shive]

1 hour ago, Bluesmith said:

S - Improved!  Found a gem in Farley, and Hooker is going to be a baller sooner than later

Farley was claimed off waivers from Arizona on 9/4/16, so he was a Grigson acquisition. He has been fantastic though this preseason.

 

I also agree with pretty much everything else you said. Pretty spot on!

[Aluckiswolverine]

It's hard to tell right now but I feel he is trying to change the culture here. If you dont perform your gone. I really hope this lights a fire under our players. Let's say I don't hate his choices which is something I couldn't say about Grigson.

[LJpalmbeacher2]

Well we still don't have a dominant edge rusher.... we still have issues with the OL, especially RT..... our ILB'ers will still probably have trouble covering TE's & RB out of backfield.... we  are still thin in secondary and not much pass rush expected to help them... our talent at TE is downgraded.

 

Ballard vowed to create competition throughout the team. The question is how competitive will we be vs opposing teams?....especially games Luck is not playing in.

[Pacergeek]

The offensive line, our achilles heel for the past few seasons, is still a disaster. Ballard didn't really do anything to upgrade the line, which is puzzling. Only explanation for this is that Ballard knows Luck will miss most of season, and didn't want to waste time protecting backup QB's. 

[IndyScribe]

4 minutes ago, Pacergeek said:

The offensive line, our achilles heel for the past few seasons, is still a disaster. Ballard didn't really do anything to upgrade the line, which is puzzling. Only explanation for this is that Ballard knows Luck will miss most of season, and didn't want to waste time protecting backup QB's. 

Or maybe because there weren't any good options? Your last line makes no sense. Even if it's a backup, building a good line is still key. Ballard focused on building the defense, which is arguably even weaker than the O-Line. He focused on that and added a lot of pieces to the defense, at the cost of the O-Line. Most people knew that he wouldn't build this team in an offseason.

[il vecchio]

He didn't do too bad.

[AlanNC]

To early to tell.  A lot of strange moves over the past few days.

[Peterk2011]

Too easrly to judge. I have my impressions though. I like what's happening overall. I like our draft, I like some of the free agent acquisitions, and I like the fact, that if he decided to go with the numbers over quality (bringing in dozen guys instead of a few quality players), then he's does not shy to admit mistakes and correct them. He's already got rid of his own 3 FA's, and waived his own 4th rounder (altough I hope he'll bring him back to PS).

 

This shows me a guy, who does not have second thoughts. This is a guy, who's job is safe, so he just does what he sees fit, without second guessing. That's good, because everyone makes mistakes. The problem is never making them, but not correcting them.

[LockeDown]

I think he is doing the right thing.  He got younger, acquired real 3-4 defensive players, said we would create turnovers and we did in preseason, upgraded backup QB, upgraded RB, got Hankins who could be 2d best player on our team...etc...imo he struggled with Oline and pass rusher but we don't know...both of those might turn out ok

[jvan1973]

11 hours ago, RockThatBlue said:

Not a fan of Brissett?

Had the move been made in May or June I would understand it.  Not 8 days before the season starts

[aaron11]

12 hours ago, LJpalmbeacher said:

Well we still don't have a dominant edge rusher....

none were available, hard to fault ballard for that.  the last two draft classes have been weak on edge rushers unless you picked #1 overall this year

 

it looks like mingo is the best rusher on the roster, he will be 27 in October, he could still work out

[aaron11]

1 hour ago, jvan1973 said:

Had the move been made in May or June I would understand it.  Not 8 days before the season starts

maybe the patriots wanted to keep him through the preseason in order to raise his value.

 

it depends on what you think dorsett is worth, i think we got the better deal in both of our trades with them. mack for allen looks like a pretty big win for us at this point

[jvan1973]

1 hour ago, aaron11 said:

maybe the patriots wanted to keep him through the preseason in order to raise his value.

 

it depends on what you think dorsett is worth, i think we got the better deal in both of our trades with them. mack for allen looks like a pretty big win for us at this point

We used the patriots 4th rounder on Banner who just got cut

[IndyScribe]

2 hours ago, jvan1973 said:

Had the move been made in May or June I would understand it.  Not 8 days before the season starts

Edelman hadn't torn his ACL then, and Brissett was still somewhat unknown. Ballard had been monitoring Brissett for a while, but a trade probably couldn't be worked out, until Edelman tore his ACL and the Pats offered a trade.

[TDewar1987]

I like it so far and I feel like the team has improved on paper... but the real test is to see how it translates to game day. 

[jvan1973]

2 minutes ago, IndyScribe said:

Edelman hadn't torn his ACL then, and Brissett was still somewhat unknown. Ballard had been monitoring Brissett for a while, but a trade probably couldn't be worked out, until Edelman tore his ACL and the Pats offered a trade.

He still didn't address the qb situation.  Tolzien is a terrible option when they knew there was a chance luck could miss time.  

[IndyScribe]

2 minutes ago, jvan1973 said:

He still didn't address the qb situation.  Tolzien is a terrible option when they knew there was a chance luck could miss time.  

Sure, but the team had lots of other holes to address than a backup QB. There weren't any good options on the market either.

[Douzer]

The average age on offense is 25.

The average age on defense is 25.

The team is not paying players that don't produce.

If you're a #1, don't get comfortable.

If you're a #2 or #3, you're either competing for a #1 spot, or you're time is limited.

 

It's a team game and the best 53 get the ring.

 

It's a philosophy that suits my mind, so I feely strongly that we're in good hands with Ballard.

 

GO !!!