I didn't mean that to be a critique of Ballard, I just meant he doesn’t have a real track record to have any faith in. He’s a first time GM in year 2.

You make good and fair points. However, while you personally may not have been upset about the selection of James, I recall that draft vividly and the Colts nation was largely not happy. Recall that the Colts had just traded Marshall Faulk away, and Williams was being pumped by virtually every media outlet. James was far less well known (and maybe didn't have the track record of Williams, I can't recall right now and I'm too lazy to look it up - wasn't he a Junior?). This was in the time period that RBs were routinely taken in the top 5, and most draft projections had the Colts taking Williams. He was touted as a golden boy who played the game the right way. I recall concerns about the size of Williams hands, and the Colts liking James better because of his pass-catching skills. The Saints and Ditka bought into the William hype, the Colts did not.

My recollection of Freeney is a bit different. He was undersized and considered a reach, but he was picked somewhere in the early teens so there wasn't as much national attention paid to the pick. I recall reading that the Colts had the opportunity to trade down to the late teens (where Freeney was had been projected to be picked), but Polian ultimately decided not to do it because the were afraid someone else would have grabbed him. Again, the move was panned at the time, and ultimately the Colts were proven right.

You make a fair point that Ballard doesn't yet have the track record of Polian (very few do), but I'll simply respond by saying he doesn't have a Ditka track record either. Ballard's first draft looks promising and, as I think I've made clear in other posts, I like the guy's overall approach so I'm inclined to give him the benefit of the doubt. As in most endeavors, you don't get anywhere in the NFL by following the pack, and people who take a different approach can do great things when it turns out they're right - and I'll go on record as saying I think Ballard is right.

There is.

If the QB that BUF wants is still available at #6, then we could get their #12, #22 and their top pick of the 3rd round for it.

Edmunds (or Smith) at #12 and LVE at #22 is possible.

2nd round picks at #36, #37 and #49.

3rd round picks at #65 (1st in 3rd round) and #67 (3rd in 3rd round)

That would be 7 picks of the top 67 or fully 10% of the overall picks.

If picked well, that is the way you rebuild a team.

Walk Worthy,

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.

I’m aware I come off as a spoiled fan to complain about the Manning era Colts. Maybe it’s sacrilegious to say (especially after what we’ve seen recently), but to me they became kind of exhausting. As a fan it got to where I couldn’t enjoy it because I just knew they were flawed and they would come up short. Their 13-3 record year after year started to just look likes fools gold. As a Colts fan I’ve never really been jealous of NE for the titles, but I will admit I’ve been jealous of the excitement and intrigue they give their fans. Let’s be clear - I fucking despise New England. But throw out the hate and the cheating and every damn year NE adapts and is different. They change and morph. They acquire talent from any available source and then they adapt their approach to it. There isn’t a do what we do or you can only win by drafting mentality. There is a fix it and adapt mentality. There is a figure it the fuck out mentality. Look at the construction of the Eagles roster and to me it appears the same. That’s what I want. Reich sounds like he has it. Ballard and Eberflus don’t. Time will tell I guess.

I get what you are saying but NE is really the inly team that can operate that way. You dont see that ability elsewhere, even if they have coaches from the BB tree.

I’m not asking for a full on BB approach. But to me there is a huge gulf between saying players need to be drafted into this D and full BB. Pissing away a 26 yr old performing player on a team friendly contract because he doesn’t exactly fit your ideal player in the D (when he hasn’t played a down in that D for you) is way, way to one side of that. And I’d argue that Philly had the same mentality I’m asking for and it directly contributed to their success. They didn’t say you only win by drafting players. They were aggressive on and off the field and it paid off for them. I doubt you will see Philly under current leadership have the same obvious flaws year after year after year without making aggressive moves to address it. Will they have the sustained regular season success the Manning Colts had? Probably not. But they’ve already won as many titles as the Manning era Colts did.

I can't throw out the hate and cheating, because that's why I think they succeed.

That’s fair. I’ll just say it like this. To me Ballard doesn’t come off as just having a plan, he comes off as rigid. Thats not what I want from a coach or a GM. But it’s early and we’ll see how it goes.

Signing free agents works in New England because there's already an established culture there. So when 2-3 new FAs come in each year, they assimilate into that culture.
But there's no established culture here. The only culture of winning football we had disappeared in 2011. Almost all of the veterans were released, as well as the coaches and most of the front office, and lots of FAs came in with a mercenary attitude and there was nothing here for them to assimilate into. It became a me-first culture full of mercenaries and losers.
Ballard knows he needs to home grow his own guys and create the right culture before bringing in too many FAs.

The comp for Barkley is Faulk. We all know that both Edge and Faulk were great, HOF caliber players, but they were very different styles of RBs.

I'll agree that Barkley is a closer comparison to Faulk or Tomlinson. Edge had more power to his game. But whenever he needed to do something different, it was there. It's still painful to think what could have been if he hadn't gotten hurt.

My comp for Barkley is Walter Payton precisely because he does have the power to run between the tackles when he needs to. I'd give him a Barry Sanders comp otherwise, because he has Barry Sanders big play syndrome, where he costs himself yardage trying to do too much.

I typed out a bunch and realized it doesn’t really matter. Those that are hopeful see what they want and subscribe their thoughts and reasons to Ballard’s actions. Those that are skeptical (mainly me) fear the worst about what his actions means. As usual the truth is probably in the middle. I’ve personally not heard Ballard say anything similar to your explanation. I’ve heard winning teams build thru the draft and that’s what we will do. And then seen his actions largely follow those words. Time will tell.

Edge was never a goal line leaper though. That is a strength of Barkley.

Where does the perception that Barkley doesn't have great vision come from? Prospect fatigue? Watch him against Iowa, there's a play where the design is to run off tackle right which gets shut down entirely. He sees this, sees the RE for Iowa crashes down hard, jump cuts to his left across the line, and creates 10 yards on a play where he should've gotten 0-1 yards by the design and OL execution. That takes both his ridiculous athleticism and incredible vision to recognize the newly created running lane.

Itis highly likely that Ballard is like Polian, except for the stubbornness to add free agents once a team is assembled. I seem to recall Ballard making a statement that high-priced free agents were added when a team needs to get over the hump in order to win it all and not when building a roster that can compete.

If you have a link to that quote I’d love to see it. I’m not disputing he said it, just that I’ve never heard him say it. I’d disagree with it to an extent. Seems financially and competitively now would be a good time to add talent to the roster. All these holes can’t be filled in a draft. Which is why I say he is ok with a 3 yr rebuild. Posters seem to dispute that but Irsay doesn’t. Regardless, if he did say that it would at least give me hope he’ll eventually not limit himself to the draft to correct issues.

I can't believe this thread that was initially about Mel Kiper and which apparently wasn't true has made it to this many pages. Lol.

I remember him saying that. You can argue it all you want, but he's not throwing $50 mil at a few names to turn a 6-8 win team into a 10 win, one and done in the playoffs team.

Here's a link to an article that has a few quotes, but not completely what I said:https://www.stampedeblue.com/2018/2/...olts-town-hall

http://www.colts.com/news/article-1/...3-5f89b2d75859

I sure do hope he doesn't have the same track record as Polian, because, when Peyton went down, the team was virtually devoid of talent.

Yes, Polian's drafting late in his Colts tenure wasn't so great, no question. Not sure how much of that had to do with him passing off responsibilities to his son, but either way I'm sure it played a big role in the Polians being forced out.

He did draft well early while with the Colts, however. Most of they players most commonly associated with the Colts' glory days - Manning, Edge, Freeney, Mathis, Wayne, Sanders, Clark, Bethea - were drafted by Polian.

That's not true. It was an aging team without its franchise QB. No team built to be successful based on the success of its franchise QB will do well in his absence.

I would like to think Ballard’s plan is what you said - build a foundation through the draft and then supplement it with free agency later. I still wouldn’t completely agree with it, but it would give me hope that Ballard isn’t going to ignore free agency to fill future roster holes. Unfortunately to me these quotes reinforce those fears.

Just a kind of related thought - everyone hears Ballard’s comment about the team being more than any one player and see’s it as an indication he plans to build a strong complete team (D, OL, etc) and not force Luck to be the savior. That’s hard to argue with. But what if another valid way to interpret that was that he’s not going to let the presence of Luck dictate how he builds the team. That he’s not going to change his 3 yr rebuild because it is wastes some of what should be Lucks prime years. Would you still agree with that? How can whether or not you have the single most important piece and the one that’s hardest to acquire not effect how you go about building a team? That’s a big part of what I disagree with.

There’s several levels of degree difference between what the Colts became without Manning and what most top teams become after losing their franchise QB. People aren’t critical because they didn’t make the playoffs. People are critical because they were a complete joke. That certainly didn’t happen to NE in the past. Or Philly last year. Or even the Packers last year.

He definitely missed on backup QB at teh end of Mannings tenure.

Any port in a storm

I think a lot of guys are getting hung up on the "3 year rebuild" thing.

In 2017, as bad as the team played, we lost 6 games by 7 points or less.

1 point loss
3 point loss
3 point loss
4 point loss
6 point loss
7 point loss

If we would have had one player different in 2017 (Andew Luck instead of Jacoby Brissett), how many of those games do you think we would have won?

Just swap out QBs and play the exact same team. How many?

Just by adding Luck back into the mix (along with Hooker, Wilson, Anderson, a healthy Kelly and hopefully a healthy Mewhort) move the needle a TON even without a single draftee.

Sure, we may be 3 years away from being competitive with winning the SB, but I could easily see a 10 win season in 2018 if Luck comes back strong, we draft well and Ballard can fill in with some cap cut veterans prior to the regular season.

I really don't think we are only going to be a 4 or 6 win team next year.

Walk Worthy,

Not to mention how many games Pagano and his staff cost us.

Quote from MMQB by Rams GM Les Snead:
That is the road we are looking at, Freaks.

Walk Worthy,

I’m not sure I get the same thing as you do from that exchange. The parts you leave out are:

Me: “You’ve basically looked at draft choices as tools in the toolbox. That's how I kind of look at your thing: You’re not wedded to your draft picks.”

Snead: “Right. You should be my interpreter.”

That sounds like the opposite of what Ballard has been preaching. Yes Snead says they made th RG3 trade and built a core, but other than that he’s devaluing draft picks. “.......you have to really look at what historically draft picks bring you in reality over time...” I assume you are referencing the building the core. The trade down from 3, etc. I agree with that, but I’ve heard nothing from Ballard to indicate he thinks draft picks are over valued. Quite the opposite.

You make a good point.

I was focused on the "build through the draft, add free agent pieces to contend" part of the interview rather than the latter.

However, honestly, trading a draft pick for the "right" veteran in terms of what they will bring to the team and their cap hits does not really devalue the draft pick; it just changes how it is used.

I dont' see Ballard being big into trading picks but I do see him as someone who, when the time is right, will spend big on free agents whom he things are the "right" guy.

We will see. I think we will be a winning team inside of 3 years (in 2018, personally), and I think we will use the first part of free agency in the future when we are closer to contending.

But now? Yeah, I want holes filled and Ballard has a different plan than how I wanted it to be. I need to get over it.

Walk Worthy,

To some extent I agree. My argument has always been that Luck changes everything. But many seem to want to have it both ways: they aren’t rebuilding because with Luck the team will be competitive, but Ballard’s playing it smart with free agency cause the roster sucks and you aren’t winning anything anyway. To me both those things can’t be true. Either Luck (and the others you mentioned) give you a chance to compete or he doesn’t. If you are in a 3 yr rebuild then maybe you can justify the mediocre free agency period and unused cap space. But if Luck makes you competitive then I don’t see how you can justify it.

I don’t have the same faith you do that Ballard will change tactics after he’s built his core, but I certainly hope that’s the case. Otherwise I agree. I don’t like the way he’s going about it, but it’s time to get over it and hope for the best. It should be better than what we’ve gotten for the last few years and for that I’m thankful.

Nobody here is arguing that at all. You are taking what one person is saying and what another is saying and putting the thoughts of two completely different posters together as one idea. Maybe that is because you are new here and cannot wade through who said what, but some of us here think we are closer to winning than others and some of us like Ballard's approach better than others do.

I agree that the Rams approach is something of the polar opposite of Ballard's. They are definitely in "win now" mode - bringing in expensive, over-30 players like Suh and Talib, and troubled-but-talented guys like Peters. They've traded away their early picks this year and next. Makes for big headlines, but history has not been kind to team-building in this way. I like the Peters pickup better, but all three of these guys have reputations for being difficult.

I will say that both Suh and Talib have received large contracts before and continued to play at a high level, so that bodes well for these pickups, but my gut tells me that (1) the Rams won't be as good as everyone expects next year, and (2) if they do perform well, it won't be because of these free agency pickups. We'll see.

Yep - I think the people saying "we will be competitive with a healthy Luck" people and "we suck now" are two different camps. Personally, if Luck is healthy, I think we will be competitive despite not adding any major free agents. If Reich can deliver his "get rid of the ball quickly" offense, that will help the O-line immensely. Don't forget also that the younger OL will have another year under their belt and should show improvement.

Defense is a work in progress but I think we'll add some important pieces in the draft and perhaps sign another low-priced vet free agent or two to help bolster the D while Ballard continues to work on building the "core" that he envisions.

I was certainly generalizing (for both here and other places) and realize many have differing opinions on either end of the scale. But, your point is understood.