[IndyNorm]

The statistics don't tell the whole story, I will always remember Mike Doss for the butt fumble level stupid play he made against the Bucs, who were defending world champions at the time, when he intercepted the ball, then inexplicably fumbled it, which Keenan McCardell picked up for a TD.

I remember that play as well, but one bad play doesn't a season or career make. Doss made plenty of good plays too w/ the Colts that made up for that and more. One that sticks out to me was against the Jagoffs early in the '06 season when Doss made a game ending int on what was a potential game tying drive from them. At any rate he had a really good rookie season (sans the Tamp pick/fumble) and was productive with the Colts until his ACL tear in '06, and the stats back that up.

The 2 things I remember Blackmon for are the game winning turnover he created in OT vs. Aaron Rodgers's Packers and how his absence in the last game of this past season likely cost the Colts the division.

Blackmon's a good player. No argument from me there. I saw that we've re-opened talks with him. Hopefully that leads to us re-signing him.

Bashir vs. Willis might be a wash statistically, but I recall Bashir being a bad starter on bad defenses and Willis being an average starter on average-good defenses. As for Isaiah Rodgers, I'd consider him comparable to a David Macklin type.

Bashir had his struggles his rookie year on a terrible D '01. Our D did get better in '02-'04, and Bashir was relatively productive. He was obviously nothing great, but IMO if you count Willis then you have to count Bashir.

As far as all-pros, I think it's at least worth mentioning that Ballard used significant draft capital to acquire an all-pro DT, who had his all-pro season with the Colts. That would make the count 6 to 4, in about half the draft classes for Ballard. Incidentally, Wayne didn't make a Pro Bowl until his 6th season and didn't make all-pro until his 10th season, so look out for Pittman on that front.

I don't think you're knocking Ballard, I think it's a good debate, and good for us as fans that it's one that can be had.

Fair point on Buckner and we'll see on MPJ. He's certainly capable. Like Chaos said it's pretty tough to compare a complete vs. incomplete resume. FWIW I don't think we'll see the drop off in draft quality w/ Ballard since he's younger than Polian was, and I don't see him trying to pass the reaigns anytime soon.

Argh, how could anyone forget the great Jake Scott? I mean, other than both of us a couple of times.

To be fair I only forgot to give you shit about missing him . Scott was a damn good draft pick. He was a 5th rounder started 9 games for us his rookie year then went on to be a 16 game starter for each of the next 7 seasons for us and the Tits. Guessing the injury bug finally caught up to him the next season b/c he only played in 7 games (all starts) and that was it. Still don't know why we chose to keep Lilja over him.