For starters you make damn sure you don't have a shitty OL when you're trying to develop a young QB.

So Ballard can’t build an offensive line now?

Easy to argue based off of his decisions over the past 2 off seasons that if he once knew he's forgotten it.

But you said a rookie QB, they haven't played a down yet.

Also the oline has been good a lot more than it has been bad, and it was really just one season.

2018 - 3rd
2019 - 3rd
2020 - 7th
2021 - 12th
2022 - 20th (weeks 1-8 ranked 25th, weeks 9-18 ranked 16th)

First off where's that ranking coming from for 2022 b/c it's complete BS:

https://www.statmuse.com/nfl/ask/mos...d-2022-by-team

Secondly here's Ballards OL decisions over the past 2 seasons:

- Pryor at LT, which is one of the worst OL decisions in the history of the league.

- Letting Glow walk and backfilling with Pinter. How the fuck do they get 2 years to evaluate someone and not figure out that he's in no way capable of playing a position?

- Admits he royally fucked up with the above 2 decisions.

- Does basically nothing to fix the problems he caused from the above 2 decisions. This is IMO the biggest problem of the bunch, and one you keep failing to respond to when I bring it up. Maybe your head is so far up Ballard's ass that you keep missing it?

Terminable offense, period, end of message.

How did he kick the can down the road? Teams start rookies, there isn’t enough depth or roster space to not start rookies. How is this different than any other team?

Who plucked Autry out of his team and gave him a contract in the first place? Yeah, it happens, they knew they were going to draft several at the position. Same with CB this year. Bradley wanted his type of CBs, so they brought in a bunch of young guys that fit the mold. You have to do that at position groups. Not every position group is going to be perfect every year. It’s impossible with the cap today.

How do you assemble a good team?

So you must not be in favor of resigning Quinton, Leonard, or JT. It’s like you want to punish him for drafting all-pros but not at the positions you prefer. How dare he draft JT, why couldn’t he just draft a mediocre RB. That sounds so incredibly petulant. Most GMs don’t even draft multiple all-pros. And Leonard impacts games with turnovers which is the most valuable thing you can do on defense.

The GM doesn’t set the depth chart, the coach does.

When he got here we had a QB and a LT. Since then he has drafted replacements at those positions.
He’s drafted multiple DEs and signed a few more. Unless you have a top ten pick, great DEs are hard to find.
He’s drafted multiple receivers. But until you have good QB play it’s never going to be great.
CB is a de-emphasized position of importance in Eberflus’ scheme. We will see how it goes with Bradley’s guys.

If Ballard's so fucking great then why didn't he learn from his fuck ups and actually fucking do something to improve the OL in the offseason? He had 12 fucking draft picks. How the fuck does he not upgrade and add depth to shit show of an OL that he created?

Where I think you're messing up is trying to use a single stat to indicate/imply overall performance. The Eagles O-line ranked 22nd in your link. But their O-line wasn't bottom-10, wasn't bottom-half, wasn't outside the top-10, wasn't even outside the top-5. They were widely considered the best O-line in the entire NFL.

Sacks in particular are a stat that has a ton of factors. You've cited 25 sacks when claiming our O-line didn't improve much after Pryor was benched. Look at the overall turmoil of the team at that time... Firing Reich, benching and unbenching Ryan, Ehlinger experiment, Saturday experiment, IR'ing and trading guys, Foles gets no playing time at all until week 16 and eats 7 sacks... the rest of that 8-game stretch was 2.5 sacks/game.

Just like with the Eagles' 22nd ranked O-line... the number is meaningless without context. The eyeball test shows you something different, not dissimilar to our DEF rankings vs. what we saw our D do with no aid from the O (in fact, our O directly made our D stats worse).

----

As for the Ballard learning from his mistake argument... I just don't buy the premise. I don't buy that the better explanation for '22 was that Ballard "forgot" how to evaluate O-line. I can't thumb through history and say 2018-great, 2019-great, 2020-great, 2021-good, 2022-bad... and say, OK moral of this 5-year story is "bad", Ballard needs a complete change of mindset. That's nonsense.

Especially considering we haven't even seen the '23 product yet. How absurd is this current discussion going to seem if the '23 and beyond O-line gets back closer (even if not all the way) to the quality it had prior to '22? Then we'll be looking at one black sheep in the middle of an otherwise nice stretch.

To reference the Eagles again... for the past decade they've ranked Top-1, Top-3, Top-5, Top-10 every year... except that one year they ranked 17th... and that one other year they ranked 23rd... Largely with the same personnel. Point being, it happens.

Now, if the O-line shits the bed again for the second year in a row, ok, we've got something to talk about. But that hasn't happened yet. It could. But I think you're blowing your load too early.

All rankings are from PFF. No one else does that amount of work and compiles it except team analytics departments.

https://www.pff.com/news/nfl-final-2...-line-rankings

"Pro Football Focus attributed 41 of those 60 sacks to the O-line – that total is third-highest in the NFL. And, notably, 14 of those sacks came in the fourth quarter, tied for the most allowed in the NFL."

Once the Colts landed on a consistent Raimann-Nelson-Kelly-Fries-Smith starting five, their offensive line played better. From Weeks 9-18, the Colts earned a 70.4 Pro Football Focus pass block grade, 16th in the NFL and a significant improvement from Weeks 1-8 (55.3, 5th-lowest). The offensive line was not the reason they were losing in the second half. It was lack of effective gameplans and a burnt out defense.

Pryor was a huge mistake, but there was a precedent to play him there. Matt Pryor was impressive in limited playing time, posting a 76.5 overall grade on 438 snaps at mostly right tackle in 2021. Pryor was athletic enough to play LT, but he came into camp heavy, couldn't deal, lost his confidence, so they had to put the rookie out there. He was never the long term plan anyway.

Danny Pinter earned a 74.7 overall grade on 226 snaps at mostly center in 2021. Again, there was precedent for the move.

You know what was also a Ballard o-line decision in the past two years. Drafting Raimann.

There were nine rookie tackles who were primary starters in 2022. Here's how they ranked by PFF pass block grade:

• Jamaree Salyer (LAC): 76.4
• Bernhard Raimann (IND): 71.4
• Braxton Jones (CHI): 70.5
• Abraham Lucas (SEA): 69.0
• Ikem Ekwonu (CAR): 67.5
• Tyler Smith (DAL): 65.4
• Charles Cross (SEA): 64.8
• Nicholas Petit-Frere (TEN): 50.0
• Evan Neal (NYG): 42.1

From 2017-2021, there were eight rookie tackles who had a pass block grade of 70 or higher – and on average, their career pass block grades have increased by 3.7 points.

I have responded. You guys just don't like the answer. It's addition by subtraction. They got Pryor out of the lineup, Raimann improves, the line solidifies. The evidence to believe this will work is already above in the improvement they made in the second half of the season. We all witnessed the improvement too.

Here's the problem. You have a lot of money tied up in the offensive line. You have to find cheaper options to put in there when possible so you can spend money in other areas. Hence the LT and RG on rookie contracts. And when you see Raimann's turn to get paid, they will likely bring in a rookie center and maybe RT. You can't just throw FA's at it, you have to draft guys to fill spots to keep costs low.

You need to chill out, you're going to blow a blood vessel.

4th round - Blake Freeland

Freeland earned a 90.9 Pro Football Focus overall grade (90.7 pass block grade, 87.3 run block grade) in 2022. 90.7 pass block grade was the seventh-highest in the nation among starting offensive linemen. Similar profile to Raimann and our new swing tackle.

https://www.colts.com/news/2023-nfl-...and-tackle-byu

They also drafted a highly athletic OT in the 7th but he is more a development guy, he also got hurt and is out for the season.

Thanks for the concern, but my blood vessels will be fine, lol.

Yes, I know about Freeland. That was one step towards fixing the problem, but Ballard really needed to make 2 and maybe 3 more. We had 8 draft picks after Freeland, and a lot of IOL were taken from pick 110 on. Pretty sure quite of few of them are better than Fries, and I guarantee a lot of them are better than any of our backups. Call me crazy, but seems like it would have been very prudent to have selected at least 1 if not 2 of them.

As for Witt (7th rounder). Like you said, he's a long term project. Even if he had stayed healthy he probably would have been headed to the PS. At best given a redshirt year and been a healthy scratch all year long.

That’s subjective. Considering Eliyor was a highly ranked guard and he went undrafted, not sure about the overall quality. I would have taken Vorhees late and stashed him till he healed. I’m sure someone will turn out ok, but I like done of those later round picks like Ade Ade and Jaylon Jones.

It wasn't just the sacks. We were bottom 1/3 of the league in both rushing ypc and ypg (22nd and 23rd respectively). So yes, I'm going to take objective stats like those as well as how many sacks we gave up with more weight than subjective PFF grades.

That's fair. Admittingly I've been overdoing it. Would just hate to see AR's development be impaired b/c we have a shitty OL again this year. That's all.

Take away a guy like Taylor, and this is what you get. Taylor, when healthy, would make those numbers improve dramatically.

It's not a given, but could be. Even if so, you have to ask, by what margin would/could these mid-round guys be better than Fries? It's zero-sum, so they would have had to pass on one of the guys they actually took. They clearly felt it wasn't enough of an improvement over our guys to warrant passing on the guys they took.

Who was such an egregious pick after Freeland that we shouldn't have picked them and instead should have drafted one of the IOL?

I always caveat that PFF grades are not Gospel. The point, though, is that the eyeball test and tape review can tell a much different story than the numbers.

Since the Eagles are regarded as top-dogs, I reference them a lot... they're 22nd in sacks and 13th in YPC. Contrary to those numbers, they're clearly not middle-of-the-pack.

And not just Taylor, but yes. There was so much goofy shit going on last year (more than I've ever seen by a mile) that I don't know how you can look at the stats and learn much.

I'm big on numbers, they just require context.

i don't see any scenario where we win the division

Richardson has a RGIII like rookie season, Trevor Lawrence's luck runs out as DCs expose him, the Titans aging core falls flat on its face, and the Texans can't pit it together because of their youth movement. There's your division winning scenario.

No real egregious pick as in a vacuum they for the most part seem to be good picks. Even Rush who didn't make the team. Just the overall lack of commitment on the offensive side of the ball other than QB this offseason. Ballard just picked hopefully our future franchise QB, who is going to need a lot of development. You would think he would want to surround him with as much talent within reason to help w/ that development. But he didn't do that. We're super thin at WR, have questions on our starting OL, and other than Freeland have no real depth along the OL. None of that is good for a rookie QB.

Edit: Forgot to mention that RATS had an article discussing this today that Jaff posted.

One pick that does stick out is Adebawore as there was a decent run of IOL taken after we picked him. In a vacuum he seems like a good pick, but he's not going to help your rookie QB develop. I would have liked to have seen us pick Zavala or an OG there. Even if they couldn't have beaten out Fries they in all likelihood would be better depth than what we have, which we'll desperately need when someone gets hurt.



Yeah, sometimes stats can be misleading. Typically though they're at least directionally correct. I also think PFF grades can be misleading. For example Chromeburn posted that our OL was ranked 25th over the first half of the season, which doesn't pass the stats or the eye test. There were several games (@ Jax, vs. KC, @ Den, @ NE come to mind) where our OL was dominated so bad that it looked like they weren't even trying to block our opponents DL.

I suppose that's fair. Last year was such a giant what the fuck is going on cluster fuck across the board that nothing really made sense.

Lions beat Chiefs in Arrowhead............. anything is possible !! Colts/Lions Superbowl !!!!!

I typed out a point by point response and lost it on the damn mobile app. I’ll just say we simply disagree and we’ll see how Ballard builds from here. I’ve conceded he’s a pretty good talent evaluator, but I also recognize there is some degree of positional value that matters. I’d give him credit if he drafted an All Pro punter. I also recognize that’s less valuable than a really good but sub pro bowl level DE.

On the contracts - In general, no I don’t think setting the market at LG, off-ball LB, and RB is a real path to greatness. Admittedly there isn’t a formula though and each situation is different. Individually after spending a 6 on Nelson they had to pay him, no complaints on that contract. I understand why they wanted to pay Leonard, but I’ve also said they will likely regret the contract. And I think they are right in being cautious with Taylor. I wouldn’t give him what he’s reportedly asking for.

Ultimately my issues with Ballard boils down to philosophy. You asked how to properly build a team. My first thing would be determining where you are - rebuilding or winning mode. Ballard’s moves have bounced between these two categories. He’s signed and traded for aging QBs (win now moves) and then treated the rest of the roster like he’s in a rebuild. Ignoring critical positions, and gifting positions to rookies and raw players with little vet competition. The Colts have been in no man’s land with Ballard at the helm. Irsay becoming involved IMO is a result of exactly what I’m saying. And as much as I wish Jim would shut up and stay out of everything, he is the reason the team now has hope - whether that was his intent with the whole Saturday move or not.

If AR pans out we’ll get to see what Ballard can do. He’s had the crutch of no QB to help justify anything he does. This is Ballard’s 7ths season in charge. I see individual good pics, admittedly better than many. I don’t see anything particularly impressive in the overall roster and certainly not in the outcomes of those seasons. I think half the GMs in the league could have steered the Colts to as an impressive of a roster and record as Ballard currently has. I’m sure you disagree and honestly I hope you are right - maybe we’ll finally see the dynasty Chaka kept telling me Ballard was building when we had these same discussions.

Edited to add: I’ll also admit that if a few particular young guys at key positions (QB, LT, DE, WR) hit this could be a really good team and I’ll need to eat some crow. But in that case Ballard would be drafting at an extremely impressive clip and I believe most things show even great talent evaluators tend to come back closer to the pack over time.

i was going by an actual real scenario. not your retarded version of reality

Fantastic breakdown and the call out of his passive aggressive approach with vets and rooks / low draft pics is spot on. I also think a good portion of that could be attributable to Frank who I will go to my grave believing was and remains convinced his scheme can turn a turd into a diamond, particularly at WR. I could easily see meetings where Frank would champion a player like Pascal or Michael Johnson as break out stars if you just gave him a tried and true stand in the pocket passer ignoring the fact that talent trumps every other factor, including that fucking obsessive play sheet. Thus telling Ballard to emphasize other areas. I've long blasted to ad nauseum the Pryor fiasco as being much more Frank than Ballard (though I think both should have been fired for that one alone). Frank is the fucker that would have play after play after play seen him in camp and had the responsibility of doing something about it - but didn't, again, because I believe he is so bought into his fucking geriatric play sheet that he could mask Pryor's level of suck.

All that said. Ballard has had a long damn time to build a winning team and right now, this team to me, is woefully short on quality back-ups. LB and DL look to be pretty well stocked, no other position on the the team seems to have guys that look like they could step in and maintain a high level of play if the main guy goes down. Minshew not included- because I think he is a low end starter in the league and an anomaly in that right now, he could probably produce more wins than the starter at the position but that's not what we need today. I do think bringing Minshew in was a stand out move, but one I mentally attribute more to Stichen than Ballard.

I think it is possible, not likely but possible. If we develop a pass rush, which could happen and if AR/Steichen can find a way use AR's athleticism to move the ball and have a middle of the pack offense, in this division it is possible. We aren't going to scare anybody in the postseason and it would depend on Paye and Dayo taking a step. That is possible. Paye was showing some signs of getting it together last year before he got hurt. When we drafted him we knew it would take time, he was incredibly raw as a pass rusher. Dayo is in his third year out from achilles, this is the year he was supposed to get his explosion back. Our tackles are not an issue, we do have that to build on. That might cover a lot for our secondary, which is scary to me. Not going to put any money on it but weirder shit has happened. On the night before we open it is about as positive as I can get.

Is today Groundhog Day?

Having a sense of déjà vu with this news.


https://twitter.com/TomPelissero/sta...49670002569384

https://twitter.com/TomPelissero/sta...50630615626209

3 out of 4 in a not at all serious preseason prediction is not bad at all I would say.

I saw the headline this morning and started wondering if Smith is going to be out for a while. Any word?

No official word about Smith. Today, one of the beat reporters asked about a timeline on Braden and Steichen said he didn't have a timeline on his return.

The other odd thing about this signing is that Veldheer was hit with a 6 game suspension due to a positive drug test. Rather than serve the suspension, he retired. I would assume he will need to serve that suspension first unless he now plans to appeal it somehow.

I'll give you one more too, you were right about Stroud, at this point he appears to be the best QB in the draft....I'm afraid AR is going to spend more time on the injury report than on the field!

That's weird. Maybe he doesn't have to serve the suspension since he retired? Otherwise if he does then there's really no point in us signing him.

I hear you, we are going to need good back ups to cover when he is dinged up. I am hoping this season is a wake-up call and he learns how to protect himself better.