Ballard is doing what Polian did

[Superman]

1 hour ago, Coffeedrinker said:

Saturday was an UDFA of the Ravens, he was a FA signings of the Colts.  I don't really care how you "view" it.  Also I amde a mistake he was working in a electrical supply store, not a grocery store.

Quote

 

I personally don't count Saturday. He was basically a futures contract.

[Superman]

2 hours ago, lollygagger8 said:

 

I think he was forced to sign more than he probably wanted since the cabinet he inherited was so bare. 

 

Maybe, but he did. I think it was 11 or 12 veteran FAs that year. Many of them clearly weren't meant to be building blocks, so it wasn't indicative of his team building strategy.

[Nesjan3]

Manning made Polian look like a better GM than he actually was

[CurBeatElite]

5 hours ago, Shadow_Creek said:

not sure what your talking about? we still had an amazing roster just not so great a QB under center post Manning injury 

 

4 hours ago, Superman said:

 

No we didn't. That roster was bad.

 

Agree with Superman here.  The only pro-bowler we had that year was Freeney and he had 8.5 sacks and 19 total tackles (13 solo), which is not a great year for him, leading me to believe he got in on name recognition moreso than his actual performance.

 

Other very good players we had on that team were Reggie Wayne, Jeff Saturday, Antoine Bethea and Robert Mathis as well as Vinny and McAfee.  Good players on that team were Garcon, Dallas Clark, Castonzo and Diem as well as long snapper Justin Snow.  Gary Brackett wound up on the IR who would have qualified as a good player.  I guess we can say Addai and Donnie Brown could be on the verge of good/average.

 

After that every single other player on the team was average or below average.  Our best LB when Brackett went down was Pat Angerer (who I liked as a person, and who had a good year that year, which was a major anomaly for his 4 year NFL career).

 

Peyton could mask a lot and bring out the best in those around him.  He could make the line look good because everything he did was on rhythm and he got the ball out quick and he is one of few QBs I have ever seen that could use the pass primarily to open up the run (for most it's the total opposite).

 

Without Peyton, we got majorly exposed with a poor line and no run game.  Freeney and Mathis both were held to under 10 sacks while playing 16 games, possibly because they couldn't be 1-dimensional and focus solely on pass rush like they were able to do most of Peyton's career.  Our run D was awful and was exposed because our offense wasn't putting points on the board like they had been used to, allowing for other teams to not rely solely on the pass.

 

Anyway, though we still had some good/very good players (who were all getting up in age), I'd say that team was far from being an 'amazing roster.'

 

 

 

 

[CR91]

7 hours ago, CurBeatElite said:

 

Polian put value into the system Dungy had in place.  Peterson wanted to be paid like an All-Pro and Polian let him walk saying he wasn't a superstar, but a product of the system.  None of those players he let walk ever went on to really hurt us (i.e., none of them ever had HOF careers on other teams and the next season we almost always saw the replacement on our team play as well or better than who was let walk).

 

Thats one way to look at it. I think having to pay guys like peyton, marv, reggie, dallas, and the oline also hurt the cap and he couldn't afford to pay them

[CurBeatElite]

3 hours ago, CR91 said:

 

Thats one way to look at it. I think having to pay guys like peyton, marv, reggie, dallas, and the oline also hurt the cap and he couldn't afford to pay them

That is really the only way to look at it... Polian said it himself in the link I provided above.

[ManningGM]

13 hours ago, Chloe6124 said:

You just mentioned a name I had forgot about. Wouldn’t it be fun to have garçon back with Hilton. To bad he is getting older and has been injured so much. He will probably be retiring soon. He could be fun until we groomed some recievers. I wish we would of kept him.

That's something Grigson would do.

[lollygagger8]

16 hours ago, Superman said:

 

Maybe, but he did. I think it was 11 or 12 veteran FAs that year. Many of them clearly weren't meant to be building blocks, so it wasn't indicative of his team building strategy.

Agreed!

[Fluke_33]

15 hours ago, Nesjan3 said:

Manning made Polian look like a better GM than he actually was

 

I don't know if that's true.   Polian was a  lock for the hall of fame before he even came to indy based on what he did with the Bills and Panthers.

 

Manning certainly didn't hurt his reputation though!

 

 

[DougDew]

17 hours ago, Nesjan3 said:

Manning made Polian look like a better GM than he actually was

I would say that Polian built his team around PM too much.  He was a good GM in finding those pieces for that team structure.  But I think the error was that the team structure was too PM focused, and I think Irsay implied as much in a few interviews during the two immediate seasons after Polian was gone.

 

PM was a special QB in that regard.  I don't see Ballard as devoting as much to the team structure around Luck's skills, but rather trying also to mold Luck into doing a variety of things on an as needed basis.  PM was great, but he did his things and only his things only his ways a bit too much, and that got in the way of him getting more SBs in his prime, IMO.