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  #81  
Old 10-23-2018, 10:14 AM
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Originally Posted by Chaka View Post
Beating the teams in our division is nice, but what good is it if we get smoked in the playoffs by NE, KC or PIT? The underlying principle that I think is driving Ballard's decisionmaking is the idea that to be truly great you need a solid foundation of home-grown players.
Doesn’t have to be home grown but obviously that is ideal. Since rookie contracts are cheap and the best way to gain talent.

When you have a great qb, 3 drafts and a shit ton of cap space should put you in a position to compete with the best. How could it not be?
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  #82  
Old 10-23-2018, 10:15 AM
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I wouldn't write off the prospect of us making the playoffs this year. I am not expecting to win big by any stretch of the imagination, but our division is so weak that we could yet sneak into the playoffs. The goal has to be to be a legitimate superbowl contender though, which we all realise is a long way off just yet.
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  #83  
Old 10-23-2018, 10:16 AM
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Apparently to discuss football with you
Not really. He doesn’t want any thoughts or opinions until the year is over
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  #84  
Old 10-23-2018, 10:20 AM
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I think the major rub on Ballard is the HUGE amount of cap space we are sitting on doing nothing. Many fans wanted more of it spent on free agents.

I get it. I also get what Ballard is trying to do in establishing an identity before dropping a ton of cash on "high level" performers. We have signed 4 guys (2 per year) so far to "starter level" contracts (over $5m a year) and one more at $5m a year (Grant).

Of those four over $5m (Hankins, Sheard, Ebron, Autry), Hankins is the only one who has not worked out so far. Sheard and Ebron are delivering starter level performance and so has Autry when heathy.

I fully expect 2019 to be a bit different assuming that this trend continues for the rest of the season of a rising defense of talent (Leonard, Walker, Turay, Hunt, Hooker) and an offense that re-estabilishes itself as a top ten offense.

Those two things happen by the end of 2018, I fully expect the checkbook to be opened in 2019 with us bidding aggresively on veterans who will fit the culture and another draft class hopefully like 2018.

Anyway, I am glad Ballard is here and I am good with his plan. However, if he sits on $50m of cap space in 2019, my opinion will probably start turning.

Walk Worthy,
I certainly understand the gut-level feeling that Ballard missed an opportunity by not using the Colts available cap space - I mean, he had something like $50 million, why didn't he spend it? - but I don't think this thinking holds up to further scrutiny.

First, and as I’ve mentioned in many prior posts, it’s important to remember that the cap space hasn’t disappeared, so in that sense we haven’t lost any opportunities. The Colts will be free to use this cap space in the future, and will now have a competitive advantage over other teams since we have more that everyone else. So I think much of the fan frustration comes from the fact that people see other teams signing big name free agents, and get impatient want something to happen NOW without thinking long term. It’s fun to sign free agents!

One of great things about Ballard, at least in my view, is his resistance to these types of temptations. Generally speaking, you usually don’t get very far just following the herd – you need to find and exploit inefficiencies in the system (i.e. Moneyball) to get ahead. The inefficiency Ballard seems to have identified is financial discipline/wasting cap space. Here’s a quote he provided back in March at the outset of free agency:

“Financial discipline in this league, you don’t see that like you used to. I think it’s a good thing to have. Because what happens is these guys are re-tooling the roster every two years. You are signing all these free agents and then two years from now, you are seeing them all get cut and then they are back on the street again.”

Grigson seemed to have a more traditional view – aggressively add talent via free agency to maintain your competitiveness. I’m not sure he started this way, but I think he was a victim of his own early success, and bought in to his own press clippings about how great he was after the Luck/Hilton draft. Then, to try to maintain his early image, he got caught in the cycle of adding a bunch of older vets (like Cherilus, Landry, Donald Thomas, Heyward-Bey, Art Jones, Gore, Johnson). The double whammy was that his college talent evaluation was deficient after the Luck/Hilton draft (see. Werner, Dorsett, Green, D'Joun Smith, Trent Richardson trade, etc.). Eventually the whole thing collapsed on him. If Ballard stays true to his vision I don’t think that kind of thing will happen here.

The bottom line is it’s not all that different from fantasy football in the sense that every team has a set amount of money to spend, and the goal is to make the most of it. In this context, almost all good QBs are underpaid given their enormous influence on the outcome of games, so when you have one like Luck you keep them and you’ll automatically have a competitive advantage over most other teams. You can then go about assembling the rest of the team with your remaining cap space. Typically, if you sign a bunch of high end free agents you’ll quickly run out of cap space, just like in fantasy football.

So to succeed you need to develop your own players for at least two reasons: (1) rookie contracts are really good deals for teams and leave you with extra cap space to work with elsewhere, and (2) you usually can’t get elite players through free agency because their teams usually sign them before they hit the market, so you have to develop them internally. What’s left in free agency is a bunch of good players who demand to be paid like great players, a few disgruntled players, or formerly good players who are on the downside of their careers. Generally speaking, you don’t get great value with these type of players, which is why I think Ballard has referred to free agency as “fool’s gold.” The salary cap provides enough room to sign several of these players, but lots of teams overdo it thinking it can serve as a substitute for developing their own talent. It isn’t. Ballard views free agency as a supplement to home grown talent, but not a replacement. So he is focused on developing a group of young (and cheap) players, and once this is established will then look at free agency to add to those home grown players to put the Colts over the top. This whole strategy depends, of course, on his skill in drafting good players.

Related to this thinking, spending big on free agency is inconsistent with his plan to establish a team culture first. To me, this approach is more convincing on the defensive side of the ball, where we are primarily relying upon younger players. I think the culture on offense should mostly be already there given the established presence of vets like Luck, Hilton and Castonzo (I can’t speak to how much the culture of offense bleeds to the defense – I guess this would depend upon how much they interact on a daily basis). More from Ballard on this last March:

"We have to get some roster continuity with 10-to-12 players that are going to be Colts for a long time. Then you feel better about dipping into free agency and getting a guy. Not just good players, they need to be able to influence the locker room with their character. A culture needs to be built. A coach can do so much, but the players in that locker room build the culture that you want, with their work ethic, with the standards that they set. We have to get more players like that in our locker room."

So, bottom line, I understand the frustration with Ballard’s lack of spending on free agency to this point, and the desire for the immediate gratification that comes with it. However, I think patience will be rewarded and Ballard’s focus on a long term, sustainable approach will serve us well.

By the way, I did NOT intend this post to be so long, so I apologize.

Last edited by Chaka; 10-23-2018 at 10:28 AM.
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  #85  
Old 10-23-2018, 10:21 AM
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Originally Posted by rm1369 View Post
It’s amazing that there was not a single additional player available in free agency that could improve on a 2-5 team. I guess if a player doesn’t make you an instant super bowl contender they provide no value.
There were players that could improve us. But by how much? And would they be here as part of a Super Bowl team? The object is not to be mediocre vs bad this year. I think the object is to find impact players to build around. I don't care about being 3-4 or even 4-3 this year. If those players could turn us into a 6-1 or 7-0 team (what this build is aiming for) sign me up. I wish someone would tell me who we should have spent money on to put us over the hump.
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  #86  
Old 10-23-2018, 10:23 AM
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Chaka your passion is admirable but no one is reading all that shit. This isn't a 300 level English Comp class. FFS.
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  #87  
Old 10-23-2018, 10:29 AM
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Originally Posted by Chaka View Post
Beating the teams in our division is nice, but what good is it if we get smoked in the playoffs by NE, KC or PIT? The underlying principle that I think is driving Ballard's decisionmaking is the idea that to be truly great you need a solid foundation of home-grown players.
Experience? Does that no longer have value?

The idea that you have to spend 2-3 years drafting before any free agents have value is complete and utter BS. Signing free agents affects two things with the draft:

1) it increases competition for roster and, most importantly, starting spots. Is competition a bad thing now too?

2) it lowers your draft position by making you win more games. But when I have said Ballard has knowingly sacrificed wins this year (soft tank?) by his moves or that his methods were making the rebuild longer I’m certain you are one that has told me that’s not the case.

So other than decreasing competition or decreasing wins (and therefore increasing draft position) why do you think free agents keep you from building through the draft?

Last edited by rm1369; 10-23-2018 at 10:36 AM.
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  #88  
Old 10-23-2018, 10:36 AM
VeveJones007 VeveJones007 is offline
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Originally Posted by sherck View Post
As more discussion for "The Build:"

State of the Offensive Line

Wow, over the past two weeks, it has been a joy to be shown again what good offensive line play looks like! It has been SO long since the Colts had a line that could run block (not since the days of Edge) as well as it pass blocked (last time in about 2008ish?).

LT = Anthony Castonzo [8th season]
LG = Quinton Nelson [Rookie]
OC = Ryan Kelly [3rd season]
RG = Mark Glowinski [4th season]
RT = Braden Smith [Rookie]

Depth = Le’Raven Clark [3rd season], Denzelle Good [4th Season], Joe Haeg [3rd season]

That is a core of eight guys whom have now shown me that, sometime in the past couple of years, they could be trusted to play at a minimum of NFL Average during games. In today’s NFL environment with its lack of quality offensive linemen, that is a HUGE deal.

Contract Decisions Needed:

2019 = Glowinski (UFA), Good (UFA)
2020 = Castonzo (UFA), Clark (UFA), Haeg (UFA)
2021 = Kelly (UFA)
2022 = Smith (UFA)
2023 = Nelson (UFA) (assuming the 5th year option is exercised)

This is to say that while we have had two great games so far and I hope that will prove out for the rest of the season, the relentless tyrant of time marches on and we cannot rest on whom we have. We basically have to make a decision on one starter each season and then maintain quality depth behind them.

Glowinski will be 27 years old for 2019 and was a 4th round draft pick in 2015. He started 18 games for Seattle over the 2016/2017 seasons before losing his job after week 2 of 2017 and then being cut after week 15 of 2017 and was claimed off waivers the next day by the Colts. He is showing that he has perhaps found a home with us. If he continues to play well, we should be offering him a 4-year starter level contract at the end of the season.

Good? 7th round pick in 2015 who will be 28 years old for 2019. Starter material for us once upon a time but appears to have been supplanted and cannot stay healthy. Offer perhaps a depth 3-year contract and probably see him signed away based on his starting potential. Draft a rookie in 2019 in rounds 3 – 5 to replace him.

Castonzo will be 31 at the start of the 2019 season. Still in his “prime” as an Offensive Lineman but we need to start having a viable backup/succession plan in place because his ability to protect the blindside could start slipping at any minute. First five weeks of this season showed how valuable he is when he was not there. Pay the man.

Clark / Haeg. 3rd and 5th round choices in 2016. Again, have shown starter potential but either not the health or the consistency to be a long-term starter. Offer 3-year depth level contracts and know you will have to replace one or both of them. Draft 1 or 2 O-Linemen in the 5th round or before to do so.

Assuming Kelly, Smith and Nelson continue to look good, sign them when needed.

We have gotten lucky in 2018 with Smith showing that he can be a very viable RT as a rookie and Glowinski showing that he has above average starter capabilities. Those are great finds but also highlight that neither were the season starters at the spot and so the importance of quality depth is so critical.

Long post to say “Draft an O-line man in the early to middle rounds in EVERY draft!”

Walk Worthy,
If an OT is clearly BPA in the 2019 1st round, I'm absolutely on board with that pick. Of course, I would prefer it to be a great pass rusher, but that's why I qualified it as BPA.
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  #89  
Old 10-23-2018, 10:39 AM
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Chaka your passion is admirable but no one is reading all that shit. This isn't a 300 level English Comp class. FFS.
Then feel free to ignore it, but that's kind of the problem here. I see a lot of the same complaints over and over (Ballard's wasting Luck's best years, Ballard failed to spend on free agency, etc.), and unfortunately the explanation for why he might be doing this can't be laid out in a tweet-long response (or if it can, I'm not a skilled enough writer to do it).
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  #90  
Old 10-23-2018, 10:39 AM
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Chaka your passion is admirable but no one is reading all that shit. This isn't a 300 level English Comp class. FFS.
I did.

I guess I am a nobody.....




Sigh......




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