Quote:
Originally Posted by Racehorse
I think Irsay and Ballard saw our window as open when they tried to get a veteran QB to replace Luck, but they all, except Rivers, washed out. When that failed, they decided to hit the restart button. Our window is cracked, but not totally open right now. If AR is the guy, and stays healthy, then it will be wide open.
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That hits squarely on my main complaint with Ballard and his most loyal followers. Nothing the team did besides signing Rivers indicates that the team thought they had a window. Nothing. Besides signing Rivers it was business as usual for Ballard - focus on the draft and future development. When I point this out to his most vocal supporters I’m typically told they wanted to wait and see what they had with Rivers before going all in and then Rivers retired. A similar argument happens when I point out the lack of “going for it” with Ryan. Same with Wentz. Hell, I started my criticism of Ballard because I felt he was content wasting prime Luck years with his stated slow steady build approach. The reality is that it doesn’t matter where the team is with QB, Ballard’s method is Ballard’s method. He is not looking at and pushing for windows. That’s my main criticism of him - he has never tailored his approach to the state of the roster. That goes for winning or bottoming out. Ballard selected AR, but without Irsay’s intervention AR likely isn’t on this team. Every off season for Ballard is the same as the one before and the one after. I think that’s a losing approach. So far I’ve mostly been right.
To me AR is the guy at this point regardless. There is no reason to wait and see. If he proves to be the guy this season then you’ve wasted a season of your short window trying to verify. If he isn’t then what’s it matter? We’ve already saw how many years it takes to find even a possible guy at QB so the roster is going to look significantly different by the time they get back to the next window. You might as well support AR to the max during the next 3 years and help him become the guy before the coming huge cap hit for his extension. Then you start a new window with a different looking team.