Kiper says Colts and Dolphins are working on 1st round trade

[Chaka]

Originally Posted by rm1369

I’m fine with Ballard’s first draft and I’m hopeful about his talent evaluation. And if I had to guess, I’d say that he will ultimately improve the roster significantly and the Colts will play meaningful football games again with him as GM. They will be a relatively consistent playoff team. Of course that probably says more about my belief in Luck than Ballard, but it’s safe to say I think he will be a significant upgrade over Grigson. Not really high praise, I know.

My concern is that while you may see his approach as unique I simply see it as ultra conservative. It brings to mind Polian and Ted Thompson. Successfull GMs sure (especially Polish), but I belief both have cost their teams titles by their conservative approaches. Manning and Rodgers should have more than a title each (with Colts for Manning). Their complete reliance on the draft and their “do what we do” attitude helps maintain consistency, but doesn’t push their teams over the top quite enough. I’d rather have a few more valleys to have a few more higher peaks.

So when I see Ballard cut a 26 yr old performing Hankins because the players in this D need to be drafted into it �� I hear “do what we do” and think back to all those vanilla and ultimately underperforming Colts teams coming up short - year after year. The best teams scheme around their talent - not the other way around. “Do what we do” and ignoring free agency brought this team one title forarguably the GOAT, but without a doubt one of the top 3 QBs to ever play. That doesn’t make me optimistic for Ballard since early Polian was largely money in the draft. Ballard better but a damn drafting genius.

Now, I said there wasn’t a track record for me to have faith in Ballard he also doesn’t have a track record for me to KNOW that this is the same path Ballard will take. So I try to remain caustiously optimistic. But I tend to believ what’s someone says until I have a reason not to and all of Ballard’s words, quite a few of his actions, and the Colts available cap space and mediocre signings say he is absolutely on the the Polian and Thompson level for conservative team building.

Polian wasn't always ultra conservative - didn't he sign a bunch of high profile free agents when he first arrived in Indy (Chad Bratzke, Cornelius Bennett, Chad Cota, etc.)? While its true he later scaled back his free agent acquisitions, I think his draft-first approach was perfectly fine - the Colts were perennially in the playoffs and usually favored to win their playoff games. Whether the fact that they only won one Super Bowl was attributable to bad luck, bad coaching or bad player performance I can't say, but those were good days to be a Colts fan. It was only when Polian's drafting success tailed off that things started to go downhill.