Quote:
Originally Posted by NoLuck4Chuck
This same point was argued about Grigson in his first 2 years.
I guess it's wrong to question a guy until hindsight is 20/20.
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Don't think I'm coming at you with this - it was just your comment that inspired me to post one.
An opinion on Ballard doesn't have to be binary. It's not either all good or all bad. I would remind people that just about everyone else's opinion on this is probably as nuanced as their own.
When people criticize Ballard for something specific, they're not saying he's a failure of a GM and in over is head.
When people defend Ballard's decisions, they're not saying he's an infallible genius with a magic binder.
Everybody on this board (fuck, everybody everywhere) always assumes that if someone disagrees with you on one little point, that their entire perspective is clear 100% over on the other side of whatever it is. That's almost never true.
My own opinion of Ballard is that, while he's basically a rookie GM and is still prone to certain mistakes, overall I respect and agree with what appears to be his philosophy: play the long game, build your team through the draft and supplement the roster with low-risk free agents that are either solid vets or have a good ratio of upside relative to their cost.
Moreover, he appears to also have a good, collaborative relationship with Reich on which players fit the schemes and doesn't seem to try to interfere with the depth chart. Basically an anti-Grigson. This is all good.
My primary criticism of him at this point, aside from a few totally predictable and also practically inevitable draft misses, is that he appears to be a bit of a cap hoarder. Whether it's because he's being protective of the locker room atmosphere and team culture, or if he's adamant about having the cap space to resign talent, or he's just so risk-averse that he's afraid to spend any money and repeat a T-Rich situation remains to be seen.