Ballard Earning Your Trust Yet?
 

Now that we're a few games in, anyone's opinion changing on the guy? You gotta admit they looked pretty good today - a completely changed defense: ultra aggressive, hungry, swarming to the ball (and yes, I know it's only one game, but still...)

Two of the top three free agents he signed this offseason (Ebron and Grant) playing major roles in the offense and look to be bargains. Jury admittedly still out on the third (Autry). Hunt, a free agent acquisition last year, was kept over several other seemingly more obvious choices this year, and now he's playing out of his mind. Yes, he signed Howard, but the cost was minimal and he jettisoned him as soon as it became apparent that it wasn't going to work out.

Early returns on the draft are also promising. The top two picks (Nelson and Leonard) have been everything we could have hoped for (and more, in the case of Leonard). Other draftees (Hines and Wilkins) have played significant roles. Lots of remaining potential in Turay, Lewis, and the others.

Several of Ballard's subtractions already appear to be validated. He cut Hankins and his $9 million salary, and Hankins resigns with the Raiders for only $2 million. Regardless of what you think about the guy's ability, the market has spoken and he was getting paid way too much. Also, Ballard cut Vontae over many people's objections, and now Vontae flames out mid-game with Buffalo.

Anybody willing to reconsider their opinion about this guy?

Ballard's 2018 offseason is doing very well so far. Ebron and Grant both look like excellent free agent pickups and 4 of the top 5 draft picks are making early contributions and look like they could be future starters, with two of those showing star potential. If Ballard can come away from the 2019 Draft with some promising DL talent, I'll be back on board with his methodology.

Things look to be improving, but it takes more than a couple games to earn my trust, as last year did nothing for me.

Yep

This is about right

This is where I'm at too.

I'll never buy in to the Nelson pick (to be clear: Nelson looks to be as advertised and fantastic, but offensive guard at 6 in a total rebuild still makes zero sense to me), but signs are generally pointing up around the franchise.

But need greater sample size still. Maybe the Redskins are just really really bad. That's the danger of being too high or too low on your team after one game early in the season.

I think we will know more playing the Eagles next week.

Sure, they ran into some Fitzmagic today and lost but they are a good, complete team that will win double digits this season and be in the running for a first round bye in the NFC. How we stack up against them will be interesting.

Walk Worthy,

I have a much more positive opinion now than I did during the preseason.

I still think he could have spent money to find a right tackle and do more for the OL though. I also think he should have kept Melvin, you can never have too many good corners and the money was there to use. And its not like this is a stellar group of corners to begin with. They are young and may be good, but not like we could afford to just pass on talent that is there

His draft this year has produced it seems two starts and long time starters, if not Pro Bowlers, in Leonard in and Nelson at the very least.

The RBs as a group are upgraded over last year

grant looks good as the #2 WR and Ebron, though I wish they would use him more, was a great signing to complement Doyle as a tight end.

No question - still way too early to say anything for certain, but just the style of play on Sunday was so encouraging. Provided a glimpse of things to come, I hope.

Anyway, the point of my post is that they guy has taken a heck of a lot of criticism but I think he's beginning to show that he knows a little about what he's doing.

I know he's better than Grigson. That's all I know for sure.

What I think you are confusing is the point of the criticism. Criticism doesn't mean anyone wants Ballard fired, or thinks Ballard is the worst GM, or another Ryan Grigson. It's just pointing out obvious things that you can see with your eyes.

No one wants or should want Ballard to fail. I think he has made some bad choices, along with some good ones. He is new at this and I don't think you can reasonably argue that he hasn't made mistakes along the way. Ballard himself would not argue that point.

This game showcased a few things in Ballard's favor.

- Keeping Hunt was something most people didn't agree with. Especially over Simon. Hunt has played great through 2 games, after years of doing almost nothing (especially at DE). I hope he can keep it up.

- Leonard. Looking like a fantastic pick in round 2.

- You can criticize taking a guard at #6, but you can't criticize the way Nelson has played.

- Eberflus' defense looked good against solid competition, showing why he was kept despite the shit show w/McDaniels. The no-name DL playing so well was especially a surprise.

- RBs look like good fits for what Reich wants to do.

- Ebron seems like a bargain so far.

Keeping Melvin would have been nice, but I don't think we could have done so for the amount the Raiders ultimately paid. I recall reading the guy was demanding multiple years at $10M each, whereas he signed with the Raiders for one year at $6.5M. Perhaps Ballard would have done that contract. Anyway, he'll be a free agent at the end of the year again. Here's what Ballard had to say about Melvin:

“I love Rashaan Melvin,” Ballard says. “I love what he stands for and how he’s gritted his way through his career. At the end of the day, we felt like Rashaan’s best fit was going to be in a system that played a lot of press coverage.”

I think Melvin basically wanted out.

What about my original post makes you think that I don't understand what criticism is? I didn't say anyone was calling for his head. I said almost exactly what you said - he made a lot of difficult and unpopular decisions, and lots of them seem to be working out at this (admittedly) early point. I'm just excited about it, that's all.

overall I think he has done a good job, there are certainly things to criticize, but there always are. I would like to have seen a better FA oline pickup, but thats been beat to death already.

what I like is he seems to have a plan and is sticking to it. Its not necessarliy on our Fan-timeline, but he is working toward an end.

grigson may have had a plan but deviated with our quicker-than-expected success at the beginning. He tried to go for it with a bunch of FAs and it blew up on him. Of course, having a terrible coaching staff didnt help, but technically he was responsible for that as well.

I am glad the team seems to have competent people in the right places now and we can hopefully keep trending upwards