Ballard shit the bed this off-season. This isn’t the old nfl. There is room in the salary cap to add talent via free agency. Why wouldn’t you? Adding just cheap dudes is fine at times but our roster needed and needs playmakers.

Elberflus was pretty highly regarded, and was the d-coordinator-in-waiting in Dallas. They weren't happy that they lost him to Indy, but Marinelli wasn't ready to retire.

I'm not going to judge Elberflus until we actually get some talent on this defensive unit.

Wilson was playing with a broken hand. Let's see how he looks when healthy.

Overall, everyone saw what they knew they were going to see. A defense lacking talent and too many young guys making mistakes like young players do.

A broken hand is not causing Wilson to :

Get beat badly by Green on the pass int call, even if it was a bad call

Get beat easily on the short TD pass

Run into his own player and loose the guy he was supposed to be covering as he ran across the line of scrimmage getting open. Wasn't a pick play, Wilson on how own just ran into someone else.

Also the horse collar tackle was a BS call. grabbed his jersey, not the pads. And that was a huge call. first and ten instead of second and 20.

Puck, why the resistance to believing Ballard is doing a 3-4 yr rebuild? When you cut through the GM speak and listen to what he says and match it with what he’s done to me it’s the most logical answer. Frustrating as hell, but his actions start to make more sense. I keep going back to Irsay’s criticism of only getting one title in the Manning era and saying he’d rather lose more but win more titles. This right here is the losing more. If you give Luck any help you are competing for a playoff birth. Harder to build “greatness” that way. They will hold the team back through the forced youth movement for this season and next. Then they will start making moves to compete the following season. The hope is to get more than one title with Luck. I don’t agree with it, but I’m fairly confident that is the plan.

Did he get beat badly? He was right there with him and got into his hands as the ball got there.

As far as running into someone, mistakes happen. That's not a technique issue or something that he does on a regular basis. Just a silly mistake. If he keeps running into his own players, then I'll worry. Otherwise I'm not going to hold something so silly against a player.

The worrying play was the TD. He played badly on that play.

While that is true, it is also not the old NFL in the sense that you can push cap forward. I think he views this year as a push.

He didn't get his hands on the ball that I recall. Green had at least a step and Green just dropped it.

I don't mind that much if this year is a development year. But next offseason he needs to bring serious talent in to round out the roster and contend for playoff wins. I see the same Andrew Luck out there, willing to take big hits to make something happen, he is not going to be around until his 40s. So this cannot be some 4 year rebuild. Not with Luck nearing 30.

I didn't say he got his hands on the ball. I said he got his hand into AJ Green's hands. He may have gotten a step on Wilson, but Green is a great receiver, and Wilson was at least there close enough to get into Green's hands. We'll see how he does when healthy. He may be bad, he may not. I'm just not going to judge him for trying to play with one hand.

And Boom