Zach Hicks on Colts real issue

[rm1369]

An excellent article from Zach Hicks on where the Colts issue actually lies. I’ve been saying nearly identical things since Ballard’s second season. He’s trying to build a 1970s dynasty in 2022. The Bill Polian and Ted Thompson comparison is excellent and one I have used. The only thing missing is pointing out that considering the generational talent those two had at QB, they under achieved in the end goal - SBs. They traded dominance for longevity.

Reich has his faults, but he’s never had the same starting QB. Every season he has major positions where they have to develop a solution on the fly. DE, LT, WR. Ballard is an excellent talent evaluator, but he sucks at constructing teams. Clean house and I’m fine. But anyone thinking Reich is the major problem is simply wrong. The team is exactly where I’ve said it would be with Ballard’s “next season” philosophy


Article:

The Indianapolis Colts are in dire straits this year, as they sit with a putrid 1-2-1 record through four weeks. To make matters worse, all three of the Colts' non-wins have come against divisional rivals. With the team falling apart and the road to the playoffs looking out of reach already, who is to blame for this disastrous start?

The common fall guy has been Head Coach Frank Reich thus far. While I am in no way trying to absolve Reich from blame, I implore you all to look at the bigger picture of the Colts' issues. Frank Reich may be worth firing after the season, and he absolutely will be the guy tossed aside if this team misses the playoffs, but the Colts' issues run much deeper than just the head coach.

The main issue with the Indianapolis Colts is the process and the conservative nature of their General Manager. Chris Ballard has been the local, and National, golden boy for GM's during his tenure, but his lack of self-scouting and his lack of overall aggression has turned this once successful franchise into the textbook definition of mediocrity.

The Colts aren't going to get out of purgatory under Chris Ballard. His process is simply not the way to build a team in the modern NFL (if you don't already have a legit quarterback).


The Poor Usage of Free Agency

Before we get into this part of the article, I do want to say that Ballard's approach to free agency isn't wrong (in theory). Ballard is very Bill Polian/Ted Thompson in how he views this aspect of the offseason. He won't overpay for middling talent and he never views his teams as being one good free agent away from being complete.

Here is what Ballard has said numerous times over the years about free agency:

“We’re just not the biggest fans of right out the gate free agency where you’re paying B players A-plus money… There’s a cost to that… Our players know we want to keep them. We’ve done a pretty good job so far of keeping the players we wanted to keep in-house… I think we have a really good culture. It’s one of accountability. One where they care about each other, and one where they want to win and do special things.”

This is the correct way to view free agency. Oftentimes, in the NFL, the teams that spend the most money in free agency tend to be the worst teams in the league the following year. All of the problems on a team can't be fixed by throwing money at it. This is what Ballard believes, and I personally tend to agree with him on this.

Where his philosophy fails is how he completely neglects the usefulness of this phase of the offseason. Ballard spoke with Joey Mulinaro prior to last offseason about his free agency approach. In that conversation, he mentioned how he adhered to a similar philosophy as teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers:

“The Steelers.. I think they are one of the great organizations and they are very disciplined in what they want to do. They draft most of their team and they work to develop them. Every once in a while you will see them dip into free agency, but not very often. When they do, it’s to plug a hole. We have a very similar philosophy.”

The problem with this is that Ballard rarely uses free agency to actually plug a hole. Let's compare Chris Ballard to one of the best GMs in the sport in Brandon Beane for a moment. Flashback to 2018 and the Buffalo Bills finished the season with a 6-10 record with their young quarterback running for his life on almost every snap.

Going into that offseason, Beane didn't come out and drop 20 million dollar a year deals on every free agent that he saw to fix these problems. Instead, he used free agency, and the draft, to plug a hole. The Bills brought in C/G Spencer Long (4 million a year), C Mitch Morse (11 million a year), G John Feliciano (4 million a year), T Ty Nsekhe (7.5 million a year), G Quinton Spain (2 million a year), and G Cody Ford (38th overall pick).


Did every single one of these moves work? Absolutely not. Cody Ford was traded to the Arizona Cardinals a few years later, and Ty Nsekhe certainly didn't live up to his contract. The point, though, is that the Bills threw resources at a position of need and ended up better as a result (despite a few misses and bad contracts).

The Buffalo Bills and Brandon Beane threw countless resources at a major problem area and, as a result, the team was able to take a major step forward in 2019 with a 10-6 record. There are multiple examples of Beane and the Bills doing this, as that team has continually taken steps forward with their usage of both free agency and the draft.

Now let's look at the Colts and Chris Ballard. Heading into the 2021 offseason, the Colts had MAJOR holes at edge pass rusher. The team went into the offseason with just Ben Banogu, Al-Quadin Muhammad, and Tyquan Lewis as the team's top rushers off of the edge. Ballard elected to sit out of free agency at this major area of need (outside of signing journeyman Isaac Rochell) and elected to fix this problem area with two draft picks in Kwity Paye and Dayo Odeyingbo.

The problem with plugging major holes with only draft picks is that those picks take time to develop. With Paye figuring out his game and Odeyingbo recovering from injury, the Colts boasted one of the worst pass rushes in the entire league. This was a problem area that was easy to spot heading into the offseason and Ballard simply failed to provide the depth and consistency to properly support those rookies.


You all know my philosophy on free agency. You cannot buy a championship. You cannot buy a locker room. We will continue to go down the same road we've been going down.
You can't buy a championship, but you can buy depth. You can buy the bottom of the roster. You can buy stability. Chris Ballard's conservative nature and fear of giving out a bad contract has had a disastrous impact on the bottom of the Colts' roster. We are even seeing the impact of this approach in 2022, as the Colts' offensive line was plugged by in-house options rather than grabbing veterans to compete in camp (like the Bills did in 2019).


The frustrating part about all of this is that Ballard is actually great at identifying talent and hidden gems in free agency! Rodney McLeod appears to be a great signing this year and past signings like Chris Reed and Denico Autry worked wonders for the team. We just rarely see these signings at major positions of need.

Nobody is saying that Ballard needs to come out and spend monster contracts to fix this roster. He does, however, need to do a better job of actually fixing the many holes that this team does have. By completely sitting out free agency each and every year, the bottom of the team's roster has greatly suffered and the holes have become even more apparent.

The Quarterback Process is Utterly Broken

The other major aspect of team building that Ballard has been way too conservative with is the quarterback position. We can all agree that Ballard was dealt a terrible hand in 2019 when his superstar quarterback Andrew Luck decided to hang it up at just 29 years old. While that is a tough event to bounce back from, that was nearly four years ago. The excuses run out eventually.


Chris Ballard has had multiple offseasons to figure out the quarterback position since that fateful day, and he has yet to provide this fanbase with any hope for the future. Ballard spoke about drafting a quarterback last offseason and the inherit risk that comes with making that move:

“Taking one will get y’all off my ass for a little bit, but the second that guy doesn’t play well? I’m gonna be the first one run out of the building ... I promise you that position never leaves my mind.”

I totally understand self-preservation and valuing job security, but at some point there has to be a real shot taken at the most important position in all of sports. With every single move the Colts have made at quarterback since Luck's retirement, none of them have been risky for Ballard or his job security. Let's even take a look at the disaster that was the Carson Wentz trade.

The Colts sent a first and a third round pick for veteran Carson Wentz early in the 2021 offseason. While this seems like a big risk on paper, Ballard was planting the seeds all offseason that this was 100% Frank Reich's move. Ballard even said at the 2021 NFL Combine that Reich "stuck his neck out" for Wentz, and Ballard was entirely non-committal to Wentz throughout the whole ordeal.

By planting the seeds that that whole disaster was Frank Reich's fault, Ballard essentially escaped blame (on the surface at least). With that context in mind, Ballard has never made that aggressive move for this insanely important position. He may have helped his job security by doing this, but the Colts as a franchise has suffered as a result.


Ben Solak of The Ringer wrote a fantastic piece on Chris Ballard and the non-aggressive approach at QB this offseason. The entire piece is phenomenal, but this paragraph really stood out to me:

“But it’s not just that 2021 was the year to be aggressive—it’s that every year is the year to be aggressive. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, and in a hypercompetitive league in which winning championships essentially necessitates quality quarterback play, Ballard and the Colts have been far more focused on the fragility of their eggs than the tastiness of their omelet. Taking a rookie quarterback who doesn’t play well may get Ballard run out of the building—but refusing to ever take that leap will get him run out of the same building as well, just a little bit slower and with a few more mediocre seasons to cushion the fall.”

The last line is what it all comes down to. Kicking the can down the road year after year may buy job security, but it will eventually run out. Chris Ballard is essentially a college kid constantly asking for extensions on a big research paper that is due. Will he ever turn in his paper? All the evidence we have at the moment points to no.

I'm not even saying that the Colts have had ample opportunity to draft a young quarterback of the future over the past couple of offseasons. The issue is the process. Band-aid after band-aid doesn't do anything for the future of this team. It just prolongs your own job security (for the time being).


The Bottom Line

Frustrated ranting aside, Chris Ballard is not a terrible General Manager. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that this team would be among the best in the league every year if Andrew Luck were still playing. The conservative approach works exceedingly well when a GM is a fantastic drafter and the quarterback is already in place. At the end of the day, though, Andrew Luck is gone and the Colts have yet to recover from that.

Ballard is a fantastic talent evaluator that drafts well and finds gems when he actually uses free agency, but his fear of giving out bad contracts and his mishandling of the quarterback position has doomed the Colts to mediocrity. This roster has a lot of holes, and not a lot of answers at the moment. Personally, I'm not convinced that Ballard is the man that can fix them.

Need your fill on daily Colts' content? Head over to the Locked On Colts' YouTube channel where Jake Arthur and myself hit on all the major topics surrounding this team. Hit that subscribe button while you are there!


Follow Zach on Twitter @ZachHicks2.

Follow Horseshoe Huddle on Twitter and Facebook.

Zach Hicks
BY ZACH HICKS
Zach Hicks (@ZachHicks2) is the Lead Analyst for HorseshoeHuddle.com. Zach has been on the NFL beat since 2017. His works have appeared on SBNation.com, the Locked On Podcast Network, BleacherReport.com, MSN.com, & Yardbarker.com.
Follow ZachHicks2

[njcoltfan]

Originally Posted by rm1369

An excellent article from Zach Hicks on where the Colts issue actually lies. I’ve been saying nearly identical things since Ballard’s second season. He’s trying to build a 1970s dynasty in 2022. The Bill Polian and Ted Thompson comparison is excellent and one I have used. The only thing missing is pointing out that considering the generational talent those two had at QB, they under achieved in the end goal - SBs. They traded dominance for longevity.

Reich has his faults, but he’s never had the same starting QB. Every season he has major positions where they have to develop a solution on the fly. DE, LT, WR. Ballard is an excellent talent evaluator, but he sucks at constructing teams. Clean house and I’m fine. But anyone thinking Reich is the major problem is simply wrong. The team is exactly where I’ve said it would be with Ballard’s “next season” philosophy


Article:

The Indianapolis Colts are in dire straits this year, as they sit with a putrid 1-2-1 record through four weeks. To make matters worse, all three of the Colts' non-wins have come against divisional rivals. With the team falling apart and the road to the playoffs looking out of reach already, who is to blame for this disastrous start?

The common fall guy has been Head Coach Frank Reich thus far. While I am in no way trying to absolve Reich from blame, I implore you all to look at the bigger picture of the Colts' issues. Frank Reich may be worth firing after the season, and he absolutely will be the guy tossed aside if this team misses the playoffs, but the Colts' issues run much deeper than just the head coach.

The main issue with the Indianapolis Colts is the process and the conservative nature of their General Manager. Chris Ballard has been the local, and National, golden boy for GM's during his tenure, but his lack of self-scouting and his lack of overall aggression has turned this once successful franchise into the textbook definition of mediocrity.

The Colts aren't going to get out of purgatory under Chris Ballard. His process is simply not the way to build a team in the modern NFL (if you don't already have a legit quarterback).


The Poor Usage of Free Agency

Before we get into this part of the article, I do want to say that Ballard's approach to free agency isn't wrong (in theory). Ballard is very Bill Polian/Ted Thompson in how he views this aspect of the offseason. He won't overpay for middling talent and he never views his teams as being one good free agent away from being complete.

Here is what Ballard has said numerous times over the years about free agency:

“We’re just not the biggest fans of right out the gate free agency where you’re paying B players A-plus money… There’s a cost to that… Our players know we want to keep them. We’ve done a pretty good job so far of keeping the players we wanted to keep in-house… I think we have a really good culture. It’s one of accountability. One where they care about each other, and one where they want to win and do special things.”

This is the correct way to view free agency. Oftentimes, in the NFL, the teams that spend the most money in free agency tend to be the worst teams in the league the following year. All of the problems on a team can't be fixed by throwing money at it. This is what Ballard believes, and I personally tend to agree with him on this.

Where his philosophy fails is how he completely neglects the usefulness of this phase of the offseason. Ballard spoke with Joey Mulinaro prior to last offseason about his free agency approach. In that conversation, he mentioned how he adhered to a similar philosophy as teams like the Pittsburgh Steelers:

“The Steelers.. I think they are one of the great organizations and they are very disciplined in what they want to do. They draft most of their team and they work to develop them. Every once in a while you will see them dip into free agency, but not very often. When they do, it’s to plug a hole. We have a very similar philosophy.”

The problem with this is that Ballard rarely uses free agency to actually plug a hole. Let's compare Chris Ballard to one of the best GMs in the sport in Brandon Beane for a moment. Flashback to 2018 and the Buffalo Bills finished the season with a 6-10 record with their young quarterback running for his life on almost every snap.

Going into that offseason, Beane didn't come out and drop 20 million dollar a year deals on every free agent that he saw to fix these problems. Instead, he used free agency, and the draft, to plug a hole. The Bills brought in C/G Spencer Long (4 million a year), C Mitch Morse (11 million a year), G John Feliciano (4 million a year), T Ty Nsekhe (7.5 million a year), G Quinton Spain (2 million a year), and G Cody Ford (38th overall pick).


Did every single one of these moves work? Absolutely not. Cody Ford was traded to the Arizona Cardinals a few years later, and Ty Nsekhe certainly didn't live up to his contract. The point, though, is that the Bills threw resources at a position of need and ended up better as a result (despite a few misses and bad contracts).

The Buffalo Bills and Brandon Beane threw countless resources at a major problem area and, as a result, the team was able to take a major step forward in 2019 with a 10-6 record. There are multiple examples of Beane and the Bills doing this, as that team has continually taken steps forward with their usage of both free agency and the draft.

Now let's look at the Colts and Chris Ballard. Heading into the 2021 offseason, the Colts had MAJOR holes at edge pass rusher. The team went into the offseason with just Ben Banogu, Al-Quadin Muhammad, and Tyquan Lewis as the team's top rushers off of the edge. Ballard elected to sit out of free agency at this major area of need (outside of signing journeyman Isaac Rochell) and elected to fix this problem area with two draft picks in Kwity Paye and Dayo Odeyingbo.

The problem with plugging major holes with only draft picks is that those picks take time to develop. With Paye figuring out his game and Odeyingbo recovering from injury, the Colts boasted one of the worst pass rushes in the entire league. This was a problem area that was easy to spot heading into the offseason and Ballard simply failed to provide the depth and consistency to properly support those rookies.


You all know my philosophy on free agency. You cannot buy a championship. You cannot buy a locker room. We will continue to go down the same road we've been going down.
You can't buy a championship, but you can buy depth. You can buy the bottom of the roster. You can buy stability. Chris Ballard's conservative nature and fear of giving out a bad contract has had a disastrous impact on the bottom of the Colts' roster. We are even seeing the impact of this approach in 2022, as the Colts' offensive line was plugged by in-house options rather than grabbing veterans to compete in camp (like the Bills did in 2019).


The frustrating part about all of this is that Ballard is actually great at identifying talent and hidden gems in free agency! Rodney McLeod appears to be a great signing this year and past signings like Chris Reed and Denico Autry worked wonders for the team. We just rarely see these signings at major positions of need.

Nobody is saying that Ballard needs to come out and spend monster contracts to fix this roster. He does, however, need to do a better job of actually fixing the many holes that this team does have. By completely sitting out free agency each and every year, the bottom of the team's roster has greatly suffered and the holes have become even more apparent.

The Quarterback Process is Utterly Broken

The other major aspect of team building that Ballard has been way too conservative with is the quarterback position. We can all agree that Ballard was dealt a terrible hand in 2019 when his superstar quarterback Andrew Luck decided to hang it up at just 29 years old. While that is a tough event to bounce back from, that was nearly four years ago. The excuses run out eventually.


Chris Ballard has had multiple offseasons to figure out the quarterback position since that fateful day, and he has yet to provide this fanbase with any hope for the future. Ballard spoke about drafting a quarterback last offseason and the inherit risk that comes with making that move:

“Taking one will get y’all off my ass for a little bit, but the second that guy doesn’t play well? I’m gonna be the first one run out of the building ... I promise you that position never leaves my mind.”

I totally understand self-preservation and valuing job security, but at some point there has to be a real shot taken at the most important position in all of sports. With every single move the Colts have made at quarterback since Luck's retirement, none of them have been risky for Ballard or his job security. Let's even take a look at the disaster that was the Carson Wentz trade.

The Colts sent a first and a third round pick for veteran Carson Wentz early in the 2021 offseason. While this seems like a big risk on paper, Ballard was planting the seeds all offseason that this was 100% Frank Reich's move. Ballard even said at the 2021 NFL Combine that Reich "stuck his neck out" for Wentz, and Ballard was entirely non-committal to Wentz throughout the whole ordeal.

By planting the seeds that that whole disaster was Frank Reich's fault, Ballard essentially escaped blame (on the surface at least). With that context in mind, Ballard has never made that aggressive move for this insanely important position. He may have helped his job security by doing this, but the Colts as a franchise has suffered as a result.


Ben Solak of The Ringer wrote a fantastic piece on Chris Ballard and the non-aggressive approach at QB this offseason. The entire piece is phenomenal, but this paragraph really stood out to me:

“But it’s not just that 2021 was the year to be aggressive—it’s that every year is the year to be aggressive. You can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, and in a hypercompetitive league in which winning championships essentially necessitates quality quarterback play, Ballard and the Colts have been far more focused on the fragility of their eggs than the tastiness of their omelet. Taking a rookie quarterback who doesn’t play well may get Ballard run out of the building—but refusing to ever take that leap will get him run out of the same building as well, just a little bit slower and with a few more mediocre seasons to cushion the fall.”

The last line is what it all comes down to. Kicking the can down the road year after year may buy job security, but it will eventually run out. Chris Ballard is essentially a college kid constantly asking for extensions on a big research paper that is due. Will he ever turn in his paper? All the evidence we have at the moment points to no.

I'm not even saying that the Colts have had ample opportunity to draft a young quarterback of the future over the past couple of offseasons. The issue is the process. Band-aid after band-aid doesn't do anything for the future of this team. It just prolongs your own job security (for the time being).


The Bottom Line

Frustrated ranting aside, Chris Ballard is not a terrible General Manager. In fact, I'd be willing to bet that this team would be among the best in the league every year if Andrew Luck were still playing. The conservative approach works exceedingly well when a GM is a fantastic drafter and the quarterback is already in place. At the end of the day, though, Andrew Luck is gone and the Colts have yet to recover from that.

Ballard is a fantastic talent evaluator that drafts well and finds gems when he actually uses free agency, but his fear of giving out bad contracts and his mishandling of the quarterback position has doomed the Colts to mediocrity. This roster has a lot of holes, and not a lot of answers at the moment. Personally, I'm not convinced that Ballard is the man that can fix them.

Need your fill on daily Colts' content? Head over to the Locked On Colts' YouTube channel where Jake Arthur and myself hit on all the major topics surrounding this team. Hit that subscribe button while you are there!


Follow Zach on Twitter @ZachHicks2.

Follow Horseshoe Huddle on Twitter and Facebook.

Zach Hicks
BY ZACH HICKS
Zach Hicks (@ZachHicks2) is the Lead Analyst for HorseshoeHuddle.com. Zach has been on the NFL beat since 2017. His works have appeared on SBNation.com, the Locked On Podcast Network, BleacherReport.com, MSN.com, & Yardbarker.com.
Follow ZachHicks2

That about sums up the Colts the past 5 years. Until they draft a young QB that they think is the next franchise guy, well, what you see is what you get !!!!

[albany ed]

I could be wrong, but I believe Irsay didn't want to suffer the down years that would happen with a rookie QB. He advocated for Rivers, listened to Reich about Wentz and advocated for Ryan. He wanted a vet that just might give him lightening in a bottle.

[rm1369]

Originally Posted by albany ed

I could be wrong, but I believe Irsay didn't want to suffer the down years that would happen with a rookie QB. He advocated for Rivers, listened to Reich about Wentz and advocated for Ryan. He wanted a vet that just might give him lightening in a bottle.

I don’t buy it. Irsay of all people understands the value of stability at QB. He moved from Manning to ensure what should have been the next 12 years at QB. It completely fits Ballard’s MO though and everything he’s said from day one. But even that doesn’t matter, let’s say Irsay does want to catch “lightning in a bottle”. Then the GM has repeatedly fucked up by not prioritizing winning this year. What Ballard did at DE and WR last year was not a win now move. What they are doing at LT and WR this year is not a win now move. So getting a win now QB and not shoring up major weaknesses is nothing short of incompetence- no matter whose idea the win now QB is.

[njcoltfan]

[QUOTE=albany ed;242667]I could be wrong, but I believe Irsay didn't want to suffer the down years that would happen with a rookie QB. He advocated for Rivers, listened to Reich about Wentz and advocated for Ryan. He wanted a vet that just might give him lightening in a bottle.[/Q
There are a few QBs that the Colts passed on that I wanted them to draft, Desmond Ritter or Malik Willis this year, and Jalen Hurts in 2020.

[ChaosTheory]

We act like it's easy. Just go get a franchise QB. Who should we have drafted? Who are the QB's from 2020 and 2021 that you think should've been the leader of your team?

Burrow, Tua, and Herbert went 1-2-3 in 2020 to teams that would not have traded those picks to God. You'd have the same chance of getting KC to listen to you about trading Mahomes.

Lawrence, Wilson, and Lance went 1-2-3 in 2021, also impossible to trade for. And on top of that, Wilson, Lance, and Fields (pick 11) all can't stay on the field and when they have played, it's not exactly been encouraging. So who was more realistic?...

1.) Jordan Love in 2020, who we still don't know anything about.

2.) Jalen Hurts in 2020, who's having a good start this season (we'll see), but whose skillset required a big gamble and a total revamp in scheme. Are we shitting on them for not instead going with Rivers (who played really well for us)?

3.) Mac Jones in 2021, who's... alright? I mean, would it really surprise anybody if he ends up on a path similar to Trubisky (11-3 his second year) where he gets replaced after a few years?


Who else should they have gone after? Wouldn't anybody else be a Jacob Eason- or Sam Ehlinger-caliber move?

[rcubed]

Yeah, Luck's departure really hurt and we are still swirling because of it. I read people saying "that was years ago, get over it" but its the single most important position and hard to come by really good ones. Many teams spend decades trying to get a long term franchise QB. I think ballard has done a pretty decent job overall patching the position, but there are still some what-if's, like biting the bullet and trading for stafford, or maybe carr. Maybe it would have worked out, maybe not but at least it would have been an aggressive move. I guess the same argument could be made for the wentz deal though....so who knows

[Oldcolt]

I believe the point wasthat the most important players in modern NFL are qb, wr, pass rushers an offensive line. He has failed at all of these, not just one.

[ZionsvilleColtsFan]

Ballard needs to go. Has been AWOL on free agency as Colts receiving corp is razor thin. Signing QBs on their last legs is a hard habit to break.

[ZionsvilleColtsFan]

Originally Posted by ChaosTheory

We act like it's easy. Just go get a franchise QB. Who should we have drafted? Who are the QB's from 2020 and 2021 that you think should've been the leader of your team?

Burrow, Tua, and Herbert went 1-2-3 in 2020 to teams that would not have traded those picks to God. You'd have the same chance of getting KC to listen to you about trading Mahomes.

Lawrence, Wilson, and Lance went 1-2-3 in 2021, also impossible to trade for. And on top of that, Wilson, Lance, and Fields (pick 11) all can't stay on the field and when they have played, it's not exactly been encouraging. So who was more realistic?...

1.) Jordan Love in 2020, who we still don't know anything about.

2.) Jalen Hurts in 2020, who's having a good start this season (we'll see), but whose skillset required a big gamble and a total revamp in scheme. Are we shitting on them for not instead going with Rivers (who played really well for us)?

3.) Mac Jones in 2021, who's... alright? I mean, would it really surprise anybody if he ends up on a path similar to Trubisky (11-3 his second year) where he gets replaced after a few years?


Who else should they have gone after? Wouldn't anybody else be a Jacob Eason- or Sam Ehlinger-caliber move?

Not drafting Hurts was huge error by Ballard. Eagles wisely picked him up in the second round while Colts signed another old timer at QB.