o

The Colts also had an injured kicker that bailed them out of one game (against the Broncos), but may have cost them several others.

If Vinatieri were healthy, the Andrew Luckless Colts might have gone 8-8 or 9-7.

o

You cannot be serious. What evidence do you have of any of this? Do you think Ballard is an idiot and has to be forced to spend the cap space? Of course he knows the money has to be spent, and he’s said as much multiple times over the last few years if you’d actually bother to listen and think about what he’s said and the plan he’s laid out for you.

Luck4Reich is absolutely correct that this plan is largely going as expected, with the exception of the Luck retirement that was out of the blue and would absolutely cripple almost any organization. Ballard has said several times that we needn’t worry about the cap space because it would be used up as the players he drafted began to develop. Guess what? That’s happening and sure enough that extra cap space now will prove very useful. However, because it will involve simply keeping our own players rather than bringing in new players, I’m sure it won’t seem to you like he’s done anything special since you won’t have to experience the frustration of being unable to pay for a Leonard, Nelson, Kelly, Castonzo, Mack or Moore (and yes, I know he's already signed) when they become eligible for free agency.

Furthermore, just as these younger players are maturing, we will have the needed cap space to supplement this with a some premium free agents. The plan was for Luck to be around for all of this too, which might have made us unstoppable, but now we have that additional curveball that we’ll have to adjust to – again, however, the cap space will help there as well.

Ehh comparing Ballard to Grigson is easy, Grigson makes every GM look better. Should compare Ballard to the best in the league, that’s the platform Irsay has put him on.

Filling the QB hole is a pretty big piece. You can’t really hide it in today’s NFL. They will have to upgrade it somehow.

You have 5th year extensions for first rounders and also the franchise tag. So you can potentially extend contracts beyond those four years. Spacing out the larger second contracts.

Get Teddy Bridgewater and Shelby Harris in free agency. Trade one of our seconds to get high enough in the first to get Kinlaw.

Let Bridgewater compete with Brisket for the starting job.

Our base DL looking like this would be pretty stunning:

DE - Houston
DT - Kinlaw
DT - Harris
DE - Sheard

So re-sign Sheard?

Ah, good point, I forget Sheard was UFA... I think we resign him, but Autry may be in that slot.

We can likely get Sheard for < $7M a year (wrong side of 30 now), he's a veteran presence and get 5 sacks a year. If Harris and Kinlaw are disruptive in the middle he will have more opportunities.

I would not be mad at that.

YES. All that guy does is play hard and play through the bumps and brusies

That just tells me just how close we would have been with Luck under center last year.