What I'm owning is that Ballard hasn't cut anybody who couldn't be replaced. Are the replacements on the current roster? Maybe not, but i don't want Ballard signing 1 year rentals just to make fans happy.

Exactly

What point are you trying to make? One year rentals? Who or what are you even arguing against?

I think what most people have an issue with is Simon getting cut to keep Basham. Ballard said when he was hired that no favorites would be played. That they would keep the best players. If you are trying to tell me that Basham is better player or even remotely close to Simon, then I'll just call you a liar. Ballard kept a lesser player just because he's younger and HOPES he develops. He didn't reward Basham for actually EARNING his place on the team.

I don't really think that's fair. Let's keep this in context. He signed a low cost free agent (Howard) and it didn't work out. He didn't compound the problem by keeping him on the roster and putting Luck in danger. He cut his losses. Yes, you can question his wisdom in signing him in the first place, but he was a low risk kind of signing who had a reasonably good track record, and most here applauded the signing at the time. There’s not a GM in the league who hasn’t made (multiple) similar mistakes, but most of them would have kept him to save face due to the sunk costs. Ballad doesn’t do that.

As far as Fountain is concerned, your implied expectation of a no-mistake draft is unrealistic. I’m certain you know this. Fountain was a fifth round pick, and most of those are out of the league in a year or two anyway. He was something of a reach to begin with, but my guess was that Ballard thought saw something in him that might be special and he took a chance. It didn’t work out and, again, he cut his losses and moved on to give someone else the reps. Same with Banner last year. While you can complain about picking Banner, there appears to be no question that getting rid of him was the right decision as the guy has since by cut by one (maybe two?) other teams. No wasted time on that guy.

On this roster how many players couldn’t be replaced? Not a very high bar to meet is it? He could throw darts at the roster and would be hard pressed to hit an irreplaceable player.

Don’t want him signing one year rentals? I agree. It’s why I didn’t like his approach to free agency. He signed numerous one year contracts this year. Including what was supposed to be the starting RT, starting RG, and starting WR2.

I’ll give Ballard credit for cutting Howard. He’s also cut his two most productive free agent signings though so we shouldn’t be that impressed. However you slice it his record in free agency isn’t good. But yes he will move on from a free agent acquisition pretty damn quick - even if productive unfortunately.

For all his talk about it not being all about Luck the only thing keeping this roster from a top 3 pick again next year is Andrew Luck. No one is expecting Ballard to be perfect in free agency or the draft. But when you’ve had the resources available that Ballard has had over the last two years (draft picks and salary space) I certainly think it’s fair to criticize the state of the current roster. You can defend any individual mistake as “it happens to all GMs, nobody gets them all right.” And it would be accurate. However, when I look at the roster as a whole I’m not impressed with what Ballard has done with the resources available.

But there’s a real difference between squandering your available resources (Grigson) and preserving your resources to make better use of them later (Ballard). It seems to me that the predominate criticism of Ballard boils down to his lack of spending on free agents, rather than spending unwisely. I’m convinced that will be remedied later – it has to be, under the salary cap rules.

In the meantime, I think Ballard is focused on implementing his vision and figuring out what players can best help him do that. When players don’t fit, he won’t hesitate to get rid of them in favor of other players who he thinks will better help him realize this vision. You can say that’s arrogant or inflexible, but you can also say its strong and clear leadership.

All of the controversial guys cut/traded were victims of scheme change – they no longer fit the type of defense that the Colts intend to play. Many here seem to be in favor of the theoretical concept of large scale changes (not hard not to be when the Colts were as bad as they were last year) but now don’t seem to like what that means – they want Ballard to half-ass it, implementing a “soft” rebuild by keeping a number of veteran guys who don’t fit and won’t play a role in the team once the rebuild is complete. Ballard instead insists upon full-assing it (sorry - is that an actual term?), and everyone gripes.

Chaka, you are correct. I will also add that Reich likely had a say in the cuts that are not popular.

Grigson’s failure wasn’t in his method of rebuilding, it was in his execution. His rebuild using veteran free agents paid off enough to get this team to an AFC title game - even while not hitting any home runs in free agency. And while completely turning over the roster and changing schemes as well. Let’s not pretend Grigson in anyway kept the status quo. His problem was that there were never any young players developing to effectively fill long term roles on the team. That wasn’t because he was to kind hearted with aging vets and they stunted young players growth, it’s because he utterly sucked at drafting. And Pagano utterly sucked at player development. The idea that you can’t develop players if there is a veteran if front of them is complete BS as evidenced by most other teams in the league - save maybe the Browns. On good teams players earn their spots, they aren’t handed them for strictly being young.

It’s funny that when I point out that Ballard’s “plan” seems to be a 4 yr rebuild in the prime of his franchise QBs career no one ever says that’s it the best thing for the franchise and Luck just has to wait. No, they argue that it’s not going to be 4 years. It’s two. And last year doesn’t count. But look at that opening day roster and tell me that it’s one good draft away from seriously competing. Can you? I seriously doubt it. It sure is long on hope though. You get to see young guys running around making mistakes “growing”. The perfect thing to placate a fan base while you waste another year of your most important commodities career.