goes against everything he has preached thus far. establish a culture, build core through draft, dont over spend on FAs, etc.

grigsons teams had early success and grigs went for a bunch of FAs and failed miserably. I dont see ballard doing that, but what the hell do I know...

Mmmmm Briskett. A little barbecue sauce and you have yourself a deal!

Grigson hit on a few, missed on more. The last two hits are somewhat debatable.

Hits:
Frank Gore
Mike Adams
Darius Butler
D'Qwell Jackson
Erik Walden
Cory Redding

Misses:
Corey Simon (13 starts, paid 14M of his 5 year 30 M deal)
Arthur Jones (played in 17 games paid 20M of his 5 year $33M contract)
Laron Landry (came off a pro-bowl season with jets, injured, suspended, paid $12M of his $24M contract)
Samson Sucktele (24 starts, paid $8M on 3 year 12M contrqact
Donald Thomas (played in 2 games, paid 4.5M of his 3 year 14M deal)
Todd Herremans (lost his starting job after 2 games, appeared in 8 games total)
Andre Johnson (41 catches, 4TDs, played one season of his 3 year $21M contract)
Patrick Robinson (appeared in 7 games, cut after 1 year of his 3 year, 12M contract)
Antonio Cromartie (appeared in 4 games, was done when we got him)

Grigson primarily failed in the draft, along with being an overall douche. He didn’t have big hits in free agency, but he maintained flexibility and added some useable short term pieces. Good enough to get to an AFCCG. The issue was that there were never any youngsters contributing or taking the older free agents place. I don’t care what you add in free agency or how you build your team, when you have a three year run of: Werner, Trent Richardson, Dorsette from your first round picks the team is going to feel it. Free agency was not the reason Grigsons teams failed and Ballard certainly shouldn’t ignore it.

As far as Brown is concerned, I’d prefer him over Bell out of the two Steelers guys mainly because I see a massive hole at WR that I don’t see at RB. I wouldn’t be upset at giving a 2nd for him, but I also wouldn’t be jumping up and down at the chance to either.

Corey Simon was a Polian signing. Also, you were quite generous with "hits".

They will not want Brissett; they have their next QB in Mason Rudolph.

It will probably take a 3rd or even a 2nd round pick to secure him; someone will pay that.

Walk Worthy,

I'm less inclined to think Ballard will trade draft picks to gain a FA such as Brown after just watching his live press conference. He was asked the specific question, "are you open to trading away one of your 9 picks in a FA deal". Though his answer was "we will look at each situation on a case by case basis", before he answered his body language screamed Hell No. He immediately squinted and shook his head no, then verbally gave his noncommittal answer.

The link to the presser hasn't been posted yet. I watched it live streamed on Facebook and I'm always aggravated by the comments from some of the idiots that post. The most notable were calls to trade Ebron and AC. You just can't fix stupid so I don't even try when I see that.

Yeah, I don't see Ballard as the type that would ever WANT to trade draft picks.

The question is, where is his threshold to feeling like he HAS to trade away a draft pick for the right person?

No one know that threshold point yet; perhaps not even himself.

Walk Worthy,

This is what Ballard said concerning Brisset

Ballard: Value of Jacoby Brissett to Colts? 'I like to sleep at night.'
He told Brissett 'I'm not giving you away.'

According to Chappell

you are correct, but I was not implying FAs were the sole or main reason grigson ultimately failed.