POLL: fire ballard?

[Dingus McGirt]

I hate watching our Colts, and then, watching really good teams play.  

[DavePSL]

Ballard said basically that he is doing it his way and if that gets him fired so be it.....Therein lies the problem...After not meeting expectations, you would think he would be open to change but he is not . As a matter of fact, he doubles down at the Colts expense but why should he care because there is no accountability. Not to mention, he'll move on and then he doesn't have to fix his mess he created. Imagine failing at your job every year and when it's time to meet with the CEO, you just say "my bad" and you walk out laughin.......with no worries...Ridiculous Irsay allows that  and fans shouldn't stand for it.  Dont want to hear fans dont have a say because they damn sure do and always will because they are the  paying customers

[Indyfan4life]

Gus Bradley once said that halftime wasn’t long enough to make adjustments. 

[Dobbinblitz]

I am voting yes because he is steadfast and inflexible on his system of building  a roster. One that is not working. A system he is all but declared he will not change .
Ballard has had enough time  to grow and evolve as a GM.  I think he is an overly cautious GM who routinely over rates many of his own home grown players.`He seems to have become less and less available to the media as time goes on

I like him in April, and not so much the other 11 months

[coming on strong]

the biggest thing for me is how did ballard miss so bad on CJ stroud?   the guy is supposed to be an elite talent evaluator but he flat out missed .   the bears were begging teams to trade up  and shopping the pick .   I admit i didnt think stroud would be as good but I  am not a GM who spends all day watching film on upcoming QBs.  

 

We could of not only drafted an elite QB but blocked the texans forcing them to take young and setting them back 3 years.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

14 minutes ago, superrep1967 said:

I agree, but just as GM. 

lol. He was terrible at GM 

6 minutes ago, coming on strong said:

the biggest thing for me is how did ballard miss so bad on CJ stroud?   the guy is supposed to be an elite talent evaluator but he flat out missed .   the bears were begging teams to trade up  and shopping the pick .   I admit i didnt think stroud would be as good but I  am not a GM who spends all day watching film on upcoming QBs.  

 

We could have not only drafted an elite QB but blocked the texans forcing them to take young and setting them back 3 years.

What? We didn’t pass on stroud. Come on man

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

10 minutes ago, Indyfan4life said:

Gus Bradley once said that halftime wasn’t long enough to make adjustments. 

He is correct. Football is a game of adjustments you make from play to play. Not at halftime.

11 minutes ago, DavePSL said:

Ballard said basically that he is doing it his way and if that gets him fired so be it.....Therein lies the problem...After not meeting expectations, you would think he would be open to change but he is not . As a matter of fact, he doubles down at the Colts expense but why should he care because there is no accountability. Not to mention, he'll move on and then he doesn't have to fix his mess he created. Imagine failing at your job every year and when it's time to meet with the CEO, you just say "my bad" and you walk out laughin.......with no worries...Ridiculous Irsay allows that  and fans shouldn't stand for it.  Dont want to hear fans dont have a say because they damn sure do and always will because they are the  paying customers

I still can’t believe he said that.

[coming on strong]

1 minute ago, Restinpeacesweetchloe said:

lol. He was terrible at GM 

What? We didn’t pass on stroud. Come on man

We did ballard had a chance to trade up to 1st overall and refused to trade up .

[richard pallo]

Just now, coming on strong said:

We did ballard had a chance to trade up to 1st overall and refused to trade up .

It takes two.  Every one knows that.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

AR is the least of my worries.

[coming on strong]

1 minute ago, richard pallo said:

It takes two.  Every one knows that.

If the colts put up a better offer the bears would of taken that .   Ballard wanted richardson unless hes lying and tried to trade up

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

4 minutes ago, coming on strong said:

We did ballard had a chance to trade up to 1st overall and refused to trade up .

AR is the least of my worries. He will be fine. But this entire coaching staff is bad right now. You have players that got paid who are vets looking terrible. Let’s not have hindsight when the real issues are not AR.

[richard pallo]

6 minutes ago, coming on strong said:

If the colts put up a better offer the bears would of taken that .   Ballard wanted richardson unless hes lying and tried to trade up

Just speculation.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

14 minutes ago, coming on strong said:

We did ballard had a chance to trade up to 1st overall and refused to trade up .

We don’t know that. Richardson is the least of colts problems  right now

Steichen is going to kill his confidence if he doesn’t get back to simplifying things for him.

[Indyfan4life]

15 minutes ago, Restinpeacesweetchloe said:

He is correct. Football is a game of adjustments you make from play to play. Not at halftime.

I still can’t believe he said that.

If you don’t think teams make halftime adjustments, then you’re crazy. 

[Patrick Miller]

Yeah, I’ve had enough. Bradley can go with him…. to be honest I’m not too fond of Shane Steichen either.

[Patrick Miller]

3 minutes ago, Restinpeacesweetchloe said:

We don’t know that. Richardson is the least of colts problems  right now

Steichen is going to kill his confidence if he doesn’t get back to simplifying things for him.

I disagree about AR. He’s a big part of the problem . Needs to work on his short to intermediate throws and just his overall accuracy. 

[coming on strong]

15 minutes ago, Restinpeacesweetchloe said:

We don’t know that. Richardson is the least of colts problems  right now

Steichen is going to kill his confidence if he doesn’t get back to simplifying things for him.

richardson is still  missing shorts easy throws .   realistically even with the bad defense the colts win that game with minshew or flacco . . only giving up 16 points is usually good enough to win .

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

1 minute ago, coming on strong said:

richardson is still  missing shorts easy throws .   realistically even with the bad defense the colts win that game with minshew or flacco . . only giving up 16 points is usually good enough to win .

He needs to go back and watch tape from last season when he did play. This offense looks nothing like that offense. Simplify things for him. He isn’t elite yet.

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

19 minutes ago, Indyfan4life said:

If you don’t think teams make halftime adjustments, then you’re crazy. 

Never said they don’t. But most adjustment are done play by play and drive by drive. Not at halftime.

[boo2202]

Eberflus knows how to play stroud apparently. All these picks invested on the defense and we still don’t have anything to show for it. 

[Restinpeacesweetchloe]

3 minutes ago, boo2202 said:

Eberflus knows how to play stroud apparently. All these picks invested on the defense and we still don’t have anything to show for it. 

Their defense looks good. Let’s not forget they had fields for 3 years so they will know how to play AR.

[John Waylon]

1 hour ago, Indyfan4life said:

Gus Bradley once said that halftime wasn’t long enough to make adjustments. 

That dipstick can’t even make adjustments from game to game when he 1000% knows what the other team is gonna do. 

[2006Coltsbestever]

Go Nebraska, they have Dylan Mahomes, I have that at least. Been a Husker fan since 1983.

[DavePSL]

What shocks me is how the Ballard apologist continue to give him a pass on a defense where every single player was hand picked by Ballard and extended by Ballard with the coach Ballard wanted...again, no accountability for that big failure. NOT 1 freee agent on that entire defense because Ballard says that doesn't work but his stategy does work......Joke!!!! There probably isn't another team in the entire NFL that has zero free agents on it. Now that I think about it, I dont think there is a FA starting on Offense or defense.....You have to be an incredible drafter to build a team that way and Ballard is no where close to being that good of a drafted.

[ColtStrong2013]

1 hour ago, Restinpeacesweetchloe said:

At this point Ballard is just stealing irsays money. Same sales pitch every year with no results. I wonder if he is trying to get fired so he can keep all his money.

 

I'm sure that's it...

[ColtStrong2013]

38 minutes ago, boo2202 said:

Eberflus knows how to play stroud apparently. All these picks invested on the defense and we still don’t have anything to show for it. 

 

I would take our Eberflus defenses over this atrocity any day... We actually made plays on defense under him. 

[bluephantom87]

7 hours ago, ColtV said:

I am not a fan of Ballard. I have objected to many of his moves during his tenure here.

 

But I voted No on this for one simple reason: you don't fire the GM in week 2! Wherever you think this season is going, if you think it's bad now, firing the GM now would throw the whole front office into a complete state of disarray. Who would be acting interim GM? The coaching staff and the players would feel the impact of that move as well.

 

 

Not a fan of Ballard either but I disagree because removing him 2 wks in makes no difference then if you chose to remove him at the end of the season. Most of his mediocre players have been resigned anyway and this season will only add to his sub .500 record. This has not been a short term process under Ballard but a rather long and unfulfilled tenure that has seen little gain in terms of consistent wins, division titles or playoff runs. 

[ShuteAt168]

2 hours ago, richard pallo said:

Just speculation.

I’m pretty sure Ballard said something stupid after the pick got traded like “We weren’t ready to make a decision on trading up, not enough time to evaluate.” Something nonsensical. The Texans somehow had enough time and made the trade. 

[GoColts8818]

7 minutes ago, ShuteAt168 said:

I’m pretty sure Ballard said something stupid after the pick got traded like “We weren’t ready to make a decision on trading up, not enough time to evaluate.” Something nonsensical. The Texans somehow had enough time and made the trade. 

The Texans didn’t trade up to get Stroud.  They traded up on draft night to get Will Anderson.  The only team that traded up before the draft was the Panthers and I think we can all agree as frustrated as we are with the Colts at least they aren’t the Panthers who look to have taken a clear bust and have no picks to put around him to help him.

[IinD]

I'm honestly at this stage. The 'whatever' stage.

[stitches]

Not now...

 

Let the year play out. Maybe at the end of the season... 

[ColtAndOrioles]

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. 

[ShuteAt168]

1 hour ago, GoColts8818 said:

The Texans didn’t trade up to get Stroud.  They traded up on draft night to get Will Anderson.  The only team that traded up before the draft was the Panthers and I think we can all agree as frustrated as we are with the Colts at least they aren’t the Panthers who look to have taken a clear bust and have no picks to put around him to help him.

Yes, thanks, you’re right. When the Panthers traded to get the 1 is when Ballard said he didn’t have all the information to make the trade. That’s strange to me. 

“Didn’t want to make a blind decision without all the information,” Ballard told reporters Monday. “I know for people, they might not understand that. But I think history kind of tells you that when you do that, you better know what you’re getting. And we weren’t quite ready to do that at that time. And then we feel like there’s enough depth in the draft that we were gonna be okay.”

 

This was in late March. Ballard had a chance to get the 1 and use it to take Stroud not Young. I think it’s strange he said he didn’t move up to 1 because it would have been a “blind decision.” Why would it be a blind decision in March? Why wouldn’t you know what you’re getting? You’re getting whoever you want if you get the 1. It didn’t happen, but Ballard could have recognized that Stroud was going to be superior, could have made the trade and could have drafted him. Ballard admits it never occurred to him to attempt the trade because it would be a “blind decision.” 

[richard pallo]

7 hours ago, ColtAndOrioles said:

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. 

Disagree.  It has been said before he’s by no means the first.  You took it as checking out.  I take it as a man who believes in what he is doing.  Who thinks he is making correct decisions for the team.  And he’s not afraid to say so.  And if it doesn’t work out and the owner no longer believes he is the person for the job so be it.  Then the owner can fire him.  He believes in himself there is nothing wrong with that.  

[John Hammonds]

I voted "no" to fire Ballard -- yet.

Ballard's job will be tied to Richardson's development as a quarterback and Shane Steichen's success as a head coach.  Both will be need to be fully evaluated after year four.

 

As for Gus Bradley, I've seen pretty much what I want to see.  He's not getting it done after 2 years of being the 28th defense, and this year isn't looking all that promising.  His defense is vanilla and predictable.  Do I think he should be fired during the season?  Only if the defense is so inept to warrant it, and only if it can be demonstrated that it's the scheme and play calling that is the problem rather than the personnel.  Also, you can't just replace him with Jeff Saturday.  You need to replace him with a qualified candidate.  (Yes, we should be looking at them right now.)

[ColtStrong2013]

7 hours ago, ShuteAt168 said:

Yes, thanks, you’re right. When the Panthers traded to get the 1 is when Ballard said he didn’t have all the information to make the trade. That’s strange to me. 

“Didn’t want to make a blind decision without all the information,” Ballard told reporters Monday. “I know for people, they might not understand that. But I think history kind of tells you that when you do that, you better know what you’re getting. And we weren’t quite ready to do that at that time. And then we feel like there’s enough depth in the draft that we were gonna be okay.”

 

This was in late March. Ballard had a chance to get the 1 and use it to take Stroud not Young. I think it’s strange he said he didn’t move up to 1 because it would have been a “blind decision.” Why would it be a blind decision in March? Why wouldn’t you know what you’re getting? You’re getting whoever you want if you get the 1. It didn’t happen, but Ballard could have recognized that Stroud was going to be superior, could have made the trade and could have drafted him. Ballard admits it never occurred to him to attempt the trade because it would be a “blind decision.” 

The Texans had a chance to trade one slot up and ensure Stroud but didn’t. Why? Every qb needy team in the top 10 had the same opportunity. Why didn’t they? 
 

it’s easy to pick in hindsight, but no one knew what Stroud was exactly. There were plenty that thought he was the best of the bunch. I was one of them that thought he was far better prospect than Young. But I had concerns too. Not having to move and getting one of your top qb’s off the board was not a bad move, especially if you weren’t convicted on who you would take at #1. It would have taken a lot to move up ahead of Carolina’s offer. Not sure we could match really with the Bears receiving Moore, who they clearly valued.

[richard pallo]

7 hours ago, ShuteAt168 said:

Yes, thanks, you’re right. When the Panthers traded to get the 1 is when Ballard said he didn’t have all the information to make the trade. That’s strange to me. 

“Didn’t want to make a blind decision without all the information,” Ballard told reporters Monday. “I know for people, they might not understand that. But I think history kind of tells you that when you do that, you better know what you’re getting. And we weren’t quite ready to do that at that time. And then we feel like there’s enough depth in the draft that we were gonna be okay.”

 

This was in late March. Ballard had a chance to get the 1 and use it to take Stroud not Young. I think it’s strange he said he didn’t move up to 1 because it would have been a “blind decision.” Why would it be a blind decision in March? Why wouldn’t you know what you’re getting? You’re getting whoever you want if you get the 1. It didn’t happen, but Ballard could have recognized that Stroud was going to be superior, could have made the trade and could have drafted him. Ballard admits it never occurred to him to attempt the trade because it would be a “blind decision.” 

It is a blind decision.  You don’t know what you’re getting until the player plays.  Carolina made a decision they thought was the correct one.  It looks right now that it might be wrong.  The Stroud decision looks like it could be a good one.  The jury is still out on AR but I believe he was the quarterback they wanted not Stroud. That was the decision the organization made not just Ballard.  Irsay, Ballard, Shane especially were all on board.  Trying to put some kind of blame on Ballard for not trying to get Stroud makes no sense to me.  

[Crunked]

I personally have had enough of Ballard and Bradley, but firing them mid season would not "help" in fact it could hurt.....so at this point I would advocate a year end house cleaning.... Someone ask  for 3 decisions that Ballard has made that would be grounds for this viewpoint, although any listed are subjective at best to which side of the argument you may be on except Superbowl wins as that is the pinnacle of success. So I won't list my 3 reasons because that is what starts firestorms here. I will just say we aint sniffed the pinnacle and thats my reason, and I am a patient guy by nature. I cannot see any progression toward that end goal, we have been swirling around middle of the pack, and it really doesnt matter to me if I am on the North, South, East, or West of the whirlpool of mediocrity, its the mediocre that is the problem. I believe we will get things figured out from our 0-2 start, how long it takes is unknown and we will finish somewhere in the middle of the pack, and THAT is the story every year "we overcame fill in the blank and got so close" is the theme to this franchise right now.....at some point we have to have the talent to "overcome" not just the resolve to compensate for it. 

[indyagent17]

Maybe after the season but not in the middle of the season. Lets see how this season turns out first. We still have lots of games to play and I'm curious to see what team comes out on Sunday. Lazy and lackadaisical or with a huge since of urgency! if the Colts play like that have in the first 2 games I predict lots of boos from the fans that do not sell their seats to Bears fans