Those of you tripping over yourselves to defend Ballard's OL decisions can stop making yourselves look foolish. Ballard himself admitted he screwed up.

This type of honesty is why I am specifically not calling for Ballard to be fired. I still support him. I want him to do a good job. I think he has some good ideas. I am ok w/being patient as long as he learns from mistakes. It's why I was fine w/taking Smith in the 2nd. I saw it as Ballard trying to fix his screw up.

Criticism is not hate.

Agreed. I’ve said before and I’ll say again - I don’t hate Ballard and I don’t want him fired. That would be monumentally stupid at this point. I simply disagree with what I see as his vision. I hope I’m wrong and I’ll cheer my ass off for Nelson and all the other young guys. I think it’s likely he will eventually learn another lesson from throwing away this season.

Fuck this learning shit, either they know what to do or they don't. When you become a GM in the NFL, the learning curve should be over or you hired the wrong guy.

Whether you agree with Ballard’s approach or not you can’t fire him at this point. That’s Cleveland level turnover and dysfunction. You can’t have that. Ballard’s direction, whether I agree with it or not, is better than starting over. Again. Just have to ride it out and see what he produces. I don’t believe that makes him immune to criticism though.

A GM should not have to learn how to scout, to trust the tape, to have an imperfect system in place, that steers him in the right direction more often than not or to have a clear, concise and non-wavering conviction in how to build a team.

But at the same time, they are all human. Everybody cuts corners on occasion, they fuck up, they learn from it and they don't do it again.

Let me say it slowly for you:

Norwell
wasn't
going
to
sign
with
us

And you know that how?

Indeed.

2018 OG / OT free agent signings:

$15.500m annual average = OT Nate Solder, 30 years old (NE -> NYG)
$13.300m annual average = OG Andrew Norwell, 26 years old (CAR -> JAX)
$08.995m annual average = OG Justin Pugh, 28 years old (NYG -> ARI)
$07.300m annual average = OT Chris Hubbard, 27 years old (PIT -> CLE)
$07.000m annual average = OG Zach Fulton, 26 years old (KC -> HOU)
$06.625m annual average = OG Josh Kline, 28 years old (TEN -> TEN)

Those are the top six non-OC signed in free agency this year.

Three of them went to divisional rivals.

Obviously, the OG situation was modified if Ballard was pretty much dead set on Nelson and then taking a second OG early in the 2nd round. His plan on drafting 2 and signing a lower cost veteran (Matt Slauson, $2.500m) clearly worked out.

As for OT, Chris Hubbard has no better PFF scores than Joe Haeg or Denzelle Good and was paid pretty phat in free agency.

Of the other OTs in free agency not named Nate Solder, the one with the highest PFF grade trend was....Austin Howard whom obviously failed.

This was not a good year to try and fix your offensive line. It was either Solder or Norwell or the draft. We missed on the two prime free agents so to the draft we went.

Anyway, I hope that one of Haeg or Good can seize the RT spot during the season and excel at it and see if Smith can unseat Slauson at RG at some point during the season. Get that group playing together and see how they gel.

Walk Worthy,

Let me return the favor for you:

Neither
Nelson
nor
Norwell
were
the
only
fucking
options
to
fix
the
line
thru
two
free agent
periods
and
two
drafts

Apparently you lack in reading comprehension. Or you are to busy trying to be an ass to actually fucking read. I specifically said I wasn’t knocking Ballard for not signing Norwell. Someone else brought up Jacksonville building up both O and D lines as an example of what Ballard should do. I commented how I found it funny he used Jacksonville as an example when they’ve liberally used free agency to do that, unlike what we are told Ballard can do. Somehow the hot bed of NFL football that is Jacksonville has landed impact free agents but apparently Indy is incapable.

Seeing as how Nelson is the single player over the past two drafts and free agent periods that could fix the Colts Oline, Ballard is either extremely lucky or a complete fucking genius to put his team in a position to draft him. I wonder if maybe Ballard fabricated the Luck recovery issue to make sure he was in a position to get Nelson? Could you imagine if Luck had played last year? They probably would not have been in a position to take a guard at 6. Then the Colts OLine would apparently never get fixed! Regardless thank god for Ballard’s foresight to get the one and true savior for the Colts line.

For the record, Nelson appears to be a hell of a player. And hopefully he anchors the line for the next decade. But the lengths you guys are going to say Ballard has had no other options are fucking ridiculous.