Quote:
Originally Posted by Dam8610
I agree with you about the handling of Richardson, but as Racehorse said, I think that's the result of ownership meddling in part. I strongly felt AR should sit for a year. It sounds like the coaches and scouts may have also felt that way. But pressure from ownership can change those opinions.
In regard to the issues you bring up with the team building philosophy, he inherited Grigson's mess when he came in, he knew those teams overachieved because Andrew Luck drug them to success. He wanted to build slowly because he wanted to put a talented roster around his franchise QB. Then his franchise QB did the unthinkable and retired at 30. So there was a roster of talented players with no QB. The QB position had to get settled first, and after 1 successful experiment, 1 failed experiment, and 1 colossal failure of an experiment, the Colts finally had a top 5 pick and Irsay insisted on drafting a QB with it. That was Richardson. As far as the secondary issue in 2023, why invest in a position when you expect to be bad? In 2024, he found Womack off the street who played like a starter.
The OL issue I can't really say anything about other than I hope he learned from it, because trusting Matt Pryor as your LT was far from ideal.
Ballard came from KC, and his team building philosophy is nearly identical to Brett Veach's, the latter of whom just came 1 game short of winning 3 consecutive Super Bowls. The only tangible differences I can find between their team building styles is that Veach drafted Mahomes, and Veach had an opportunity to get a haul of draft picks for a player he didn't want to sign long term.
I think this is pretty much accurate. Owners typically have more say in QB decisions than we realize, because ultimately they're the ones dishing out the ridiculous contracts attached. Are there things I feel could've been done differently, both with regard to the QB position and general roster building? Yes, the primary one being that I think the "moving heaven and earth" talk from Ballard should've been followed through by trading whatever it took to get to 1 and take Stroud. That said, everyone has their pet QB move that should've been made, whether it's Stafford, Mayfield, Hurts, Love, Herbert, etc. They ultimately went with Richardson, and the book isn't fully closed on him yet. It's not a good look for him to lose a QB battle with Janiel Dones, but he's 23. He could come back next year, or maybe even later this year, and have everything click.
So would you say Ryan Grigson was a better GM?
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As I pointed out, the three other teams bottomed out and then won the division in less time the Ballard as been GM. The team Ballard inherited was not significantly worse than those teams. Believing they were is the result of the same outcome bias Chaos is accusing people of using.
Is Ballard a better GM than Grigson. Yes, maybe? IMO Grigson has the correct philosophy for the modern NFL, Ballard’s philosophy is antiquated. Grigson’s primary issue was that he sucked at a talent evaluator. In that regard, Ballard is certainly superior, no argument. But I don’t believe Ballard will ever win a SB, and I believe that even if he had Luck at QB. Why? Because he’s too risk adverse to ever make the moves to help his team peak. Ballard supporters always talk out of both sides of their mouths on this point. They claim that he’s not been aggressive only because he hasn’t had the QB. They say he didn’t move up to get the QB because it was too risky without drafting high. Then they defend his decisions that kept the team from bottoming out and drafting high. Irsay’s decision is the only reason the team was in a position to draft AR.
Rivers wasn’t a successful experiment, he was an example of Ballard’s failed philosophy. I don’t know how anyone can defend signing rivers and not going all in. He was a 1-2 yr QB max. Either swing for a deep run or don’t sign him.
Everyone talks about how talented the team has been over this run, but every single year it has had some aspect that is bottom of the league that he just does nothing with. Of course pointing that out does no good because it gets in to what I mentioned before - “why solve CB (or DE or TE, or LT, etc) when the team doesn’t have a QB…” And yes the DC sucked,but how was he ever brought here? Ballard.
I see plenty of differences between KC and Ballard. How did they draft Mahomes? They made a risky move and went and got him. The exact thing Ballard has not done for a QB, always stating it was too risky. There are plenty of other things they have done that are completely unlike Ballard.
08-30-2025, 08:37 PM
Hybrid Mode
