If anyone doesn’t want Rivers, for all the naysayers and incendiarists who want to fire people, one question…

Who? At this point, in this season, who has a better chance of offering a glimmer for success?

Are we really confident in Riley Leonard or Brett Rypien?

When training camp closed, CBS ran a list of the dozen best QB’s available. They included Tommy Devito, Tyler Huntley, CJ Beathard, Desmond Ridder, Easton Stick, Rypien, Kyle McCord, Kyle Trask, Dorian Thompson Robinson, Herndon Hooker, John Wolford, and Bailey Zappe.

Most of those guys have hooked up with teams. Ridder is out there, but only because he wasn’t good enough to stick on the Viking’s practice squad. DeVito would have been a decent hail Mary, but he’s on the Patriot’s 53 man roster, and I don’t see anyone in that wretched organization tossing a drowning man anything other than an anchor.

And your solution was? Maybe we could have pried Josh Allen out of Buffalo for a conditional 6th rounder. Maybe we could’ve offered a lifetime supply of squirrel oil and a bucket of peppered chipmunk feet to Captain Andrew Luck and lured him out of retirement.

When the season opens, even the best run, non entertainment, organization quails at the thought of tossing their 4th string Quarterback into the fray. You can be unhappy that we find ourselves in this situation, but I don’t think you can blame the organization.

I’m betting that most of you that know how badly you his will turn out weren’t around to watch George Blanda. Of course it reeks of desperation, that it totally appropriate under the circumstances. Is the anyone here who thinks things aren’t desperate?

You start Rypien. Next man up. He was good enough to be placed in his position before, he should be starting now. Sign a reasonable FA QB off the street. Don't bring back an old, famous name to create a show. Doing a circus act clown show because your season is fucked, regardless of whoever QB starts, is just a gross to me.

I've made my opinion clear and won't be posting about this anymore.

Wonder if he’s gonna wear 17?

Franklin should donate 44.

Starting Rypien is tantamount to forfeiting the final four games of the season. If Rivers still has a functional arm, he gives you a puncher’s chance. He can no longer dazzle, but he might win on sheer guile. At this point, the bottom line is why not let him try. What is there to lose?

It's so beautiful...Let's Go!

I'm sure no one remembers when I said we should sign Brady

Yeah, I think he was having lunch with Colin Kapernik

o


If that is "gross" to you, you have a weak mind ...... I'd hate to see your reaction to having to change a baby's diaper, or having a full-time job as a sanitation worker.

o

I'm listening to The Fan Morning Show podcast, and they said that Sam Ehlinger had been contacted by the Colts and he refused to come back. I'd read that somewhere yesterday, but it's been confirmed today.

All this info. I'm obviously not connected like most on here. Can someone give the link that says Rivers has been activated from the practice squad?

He has not been activated yet. Probably won't happen until Friday or Saturday if it happens this week

Denver is 11-2 and on a 10 game winning streak. Tied for the best record in the NFL.

This is probably Ehlinger's best shot of getting a Super Bowl ring.

Yeah, but he’s never going to play there. Here he would have had a really good shot at playing. A LOT.

That’s crazy to me. I’m sure practice squad guys have refused an active roster spot with another team before but I’m willing to bet it rarely happens.

I wonder what his reasoning was?

Apparently he’s happy just collecting a check and never playing.

Good for him, I guess.

I really believe that if Rivers had given us one more year, we would have not only made the playoffs in 2021, but made some noise in the playoffs.

So why did he leave?

family came first.

Apparently the Colts had hoped to sign both Ehlinger AND Rivers. If that’s true, his decision to stay in Denver makes a little more sense.

He probably thought they wanted him to back up Rivers. He’s a back up in Denver and they like it there so why move?

If that’s true, it says a lot about what the Colts think of Leonard, that they were trying to bring two guys in to be ahead of him.

o


He was good enough to be placed in that position before ??? What position is that ??? Rypien is a career 2nd-string/3rd-string/4th string NFL QB who hasn't taken a snap from center since the 2023 season. For his "career" he is 98-for-168 (58.3% Completion Rate) for 950 Yards Passing, 4 TD's, 9 INT's, and has a Passer Rating of 59.9.


If Rypien ever gets into a game for the Colts the season, I would love nothing more than for him to light it up and lead the team to a victory ...... but you are screaming about the franchise being a joke for signing Philip Rivers to the practice squad while simultaneously claiming that the right move right now would be to start a quarterback who hasn't been anywhere near adequate in the very brief time that he has played since entering the league in 2019 ...... I don't think that you really believe that, I think that you are just saying that because you don't want to admit that Kray was correct in asserting that you have no solution to the problem in which you are criticizing the Colts for because of the manner in which they are dealing with it. I don't have a solution either, but I'm also not asserting that the Colts should make an obvious move that is better than what they are doing, because there is no obvious alternate move.

o

All this tells me one thing, if the Colts don't make the playoffs both Ballard and Steichen are going to be fired. This is desperation from a guy (Ballard) that has already gambled our future on a fragile cornerback and knows what a fool he will look like if the Colts don't make the playoffs....again!

Riley looked better than Sam ever did with very limited preparation. Fat boy Rivers won't last an entire game, no way he is in game shape. These guys (Ballard and Steichen) are trying to save themselves, hopefully both are fired at the end of the season!

I think this is 100% correct.

I think CIG is way hands on, sits in the player meetings and coaches meetings and listens to everyone and everything. I think she knows better than perhaps any other owner in the league what state the team is in.

You also cannot stand for "just good enough" in the NFL. You have to keep striving for better.

I am undecided as to if Ballard and SS need to go; the first half of the season showed that they have a winning team on their hands....when everything is going for them.

But, I agree that the Sauce trade and Rivers signings are SO FAR OUTSIDE THE BALLARD NORM that they indicate a desperation in team management that we have not seen before.

It will not surprise me to see them fired if we miss the playoffs. It will not surprise me to see them back next year.

What I do know, however, is that CIG is going to be very interested in how her (and her sisters) team is working day in and day out and will have a finger on the pulse like almost no other owner does.

And I hope that will great for us in the long run.

Well this also is my hope for the team. It will be fascinating to see how she and her sisters handle this whole thing. From what we read she was all in on Sauce. This will be a very telling offseason. So just watch Rivers lead us into an improbable run and throw everything into a scramble

The mere fact that the shade of Sam Ehlinger has entered our conversation shows how dire the situation has become. Ehlinger is a fringe, practice squad denizen, the kind of guy you pray never takes the field. If he does, your season has gone so far off the tracks, so sideways that you’re adrift at sea, clinging to what’s left of a dining room table, like a survivor of the Titanic.

Phillip Rivers, in a wheelchair, his right arm in a cast, gives you a better chance of winning than Sam Ehlinger.

Well, maybe not.

But, Rivers does bring a little to the table. He’s smart, with a wealth of experience. He’s accurate, he probably has enough of an arm left to run some truncated version of Shane Steichen’s Offense, and he can probably do a splendid job of handing the ball off to Jonathan Taylor.

At this point, we can’t realistically as for more.

Steichen and Ballard aren’t getting fired after this season. I’d bet quite a bit on that.

Firing Steichen and Ballard would make us the laughing stock of the NFL. you don’t fire people because they can’t win with a practice squad Quarterback.

You don’t fire people because you can’t win with Riley Leonard.

When they drafted Leonard, only one person on this board didn’t rip the move, and his…UK Colt’s…reaction was that we should wait and see. The consensus was that he brings nothing to the table. Now, 7 months later, we’re ready to fire people if Leonard doesn’t pull a rabbit out of his hat?

Sheesh.

Leonard is a competitor he’s gonna go out there and shock the world in Seattle

Did Leonard lose to the Steelers, Chiefs, and Texans.....we are already the laughing stock of the league! Using your theory, Jones ruptured achilles is the best thing that could have happened for Ballard, because the team was losing to better teams before that happened. Ballard has had 8 years and it is the same shit every year and the same excuse makers defend him every season.

I'll throw this in to, if Leonard wasn't good enough to backup an injured Jones, why didn't they upgrade the position early on? Stroud goes down for 3 games and Davis Mills steps in and wins all 3 games, that is a prepared team!

He should get his chance!

They didn’t upgrade the position because no one could have foreseen it taking this long for AR to heal. It’s a mystery why he’s still having issues.

Regardless, they’re not firing Steichen or Ballard after the season, nor should they. They’d never get anyone to come here.

Daniel Jones was having a career year before he got hurt, that’s indisputable. That’s because of Steichen. Ballard built one of the deepest offenses in the league, with talent at every position. He leaves a little to be desired on the other side but no GM is perfect.

I like Jones, not sure he will ever be the same player after this injury. Let's be fair, we were playing a very weak schedule early on, when we got into the tougher part of the schedule the powerful offense came down to Earth. I actually like Steichen and perhaps he deserves a couple more years, but Ballard has had plenty of time, I can't believe he is never held accountable for some of his terrible decisions.

Someone said Carlie was totally onboard with the Sauce deal, who puts crap like that out there? People protecting Ballard, that's who, he probably has people leak crap like that. Every bad deal we have made it is always the same, "Jim loved the idea", "It was Frank Reich's idea", he always manages to get cover....he is teflon Chris!

I get the frustration, I really do. The colts are caught in no man’s land. Not bad enough to be able to draft a true franchise quarterback but not good enough to actually win games. And without a franchise quarterback in the nfl, you have nothing. You have no shot.

I’m pretty certain that unless the next guy has a foolproof plan for acquiring a franchise quarterback, he or she won’t be any better than Ballard. In fact, they’d almost certainly be worse.

The ones doing that have wanted them both fired for quite some time, but have been waiting for the time to pounce.

Just wondering if 2 playoff berths and no division titles in 8 years should be paid this much?

Chris Ballard's salary is not publicly available, but he is reportedly under a new 5.5-year contract worth $131.5 million, with $70 million guaranteed through 2028.

Grigson had 2 division titles......

If you take an objective look at the league, teams that find a franchise QB (and I mean a real one, not a Trevor Lawrence type) do not have to spend as much capital finding one as those who swing and miss. They also do not get the really high picks, but those who get those picks waste them on a lottery ticket at the position, and have to pass on the elite talent at other positions. That is how the Steelers did so well for so long. They had Ben. NE had Brady. We had Peyton. NO had Brees. So, these teams could pick later, and get a player who was less of a lottery ticket, and a real prospect. This is why I think Ballard did not trade up, or make a risky gamble at QB, because there was more value in other positions. We have a lot of talent, but are again without a solid QB to make it work. If Ballard gets that part right, we can be drafting BPA to add depth and get on another decade of top-notch football.

Dam suggested we trade up to get Stroud. Maybe the idea is right to make one big swing, but I was never convinced Stroud was the guy Dam said he was. If I were convinced, I think Dam would have been right in that approach. However, that would have been a less expensive move up than where we have been drafting.

Correction: Luck had two division titles despite Grigsuck

Considering Ballard's past QB picks, maybe Ballard picks RGIII.....:D

You are just reaching to blame Ballard for anything this yr. This is a very good team at almost all levels. LB is the weakest area. Without all the injuries (not Ballards fault). Our secondary would be one of the tops in the league. (Dont't forget Walley). But we lost Ward to a freak injury and Sauce to another one. One is done for the yr and the other is still hopeful.

DL has been down with out Buck. (not Ballards fault). Bur he went out and got Wormly who has been a pleasant surprise in limited snaps.

DJ has been playing on a broken freakin leg for his last 3 games (arguably the hardest stretch )against KC Houston and JAX those teams only combined for 1 sack, so the Oline is getting back to a top team.

We have one of the best TE's in the league and the best RB in the league. Ballard drafted them. Everyone wanted Pierce gone after one yr and look at him now. Tops in separation and tops in yds per catch. Will that be taken away with Phil? We will see.

For all those saying they should have had a plan for backup QB, Who could have predicted AR would get fucked up by a piece of training equipment??

Was the Rivers thing a last second hail mary? Possibly, How do you know that Rivers wasn’t the back up plan all along? They are in constant communication. Rivers was never going to come here and sit the bench behind DJ. IMO for a few reasons. He's and alpha and not a back up. Also it would have put pressure on DJ if he didn't perform well. So he told Shane call me if you need me. Its been said that for the last few yrs he has stayed in shape to help a team make it in the playoffs. Yea this summer he thought it was over, But after DJ went down Phil was watching and thought to himself. Is Shane gonna call?

How else could it be explained that DJ gets hurt and he very next day Phil is in Indy and worked out and signed on Tuesday?

You mentioned the schedule. Most of us would agree that the Colts were hosed by the refs in the Chiefs game, Houston, as well as against Jaggoffs. We could easily be 10-2 We got outplayed by Steelers. Every team has one of those games. Yea some mistakes by Shane for sure. But we really could've been 10-2 and that is not a stretch. We were in every game Except the Steelers.

Anyway. Why do some of you even watch the Colts if you hate so much about it? Do you not think that even if Rivers is rusty, and plays bad. It's gonna be fun to watch? I can honestly say I never expected us to be 7-1 and the #1 seed. Then shit piled up.

I am excited to see Uncle Phil. Should be must watch TV. Hell the league is excited. My Bet is most of us didn't expect to be playing for something this late in the season.

All the negativity is one reason I am not on here. It's a place to vent, sure, but not constantly