Denver caught their rainbow

[Dam8610]

Originally Posted by IndyNorm

My lack of valuing the premium positions comment is mainly based on Ballard's lack of investment at WR (in 6 years the only real investment he's put into the position is 2 2nd round draft picks) and his handling of the LT situation which up to this point has been a disaster. Hopefully Raimann pans out and rights the ship there. But even if he does it was still at least a big short term fuck up that Ballard could have avoided.

Ballard also traded out of the 1st round in '19, which next to '17 is probably his worst draft. Agree on Buckner and Wentz trades. You just made it sound like Ballard's hands have been tied a bit b/c he hasn't had a full allotment of picks frequently, so I wanted to point out that it was his doing.

Ballard's invested 3 2nd round picks in WR (Campbell, Pittman, Pierce), and it's starting to look like all 3 of them will be valuable contributors for the Colts moving forward, provided they re-sign Campbell, which I think they should.

After Raimann was a Top 10 OT in football for the second half of last season in his third year of playing football at any level, I doubt he's going to regress to being a bad player.

Also, interestingly, the '19 trade down that you brought up also serves to illustrate Ballard's weakness at evaluating DE talent. I wanted Montez Sweat that year, didn't think he'd be there at 26. I remember my heart leaping up when Sweat fell to 26, then being completely deflated when I saw the trade down with the Commies, who then drafted Sweat, who has been a quality starter and pass rusher for them. Ironically, that 34th pick that was acquired in the trade down was used to select Rock Ya-Sin, who was eventually traded for Yannick Ngakoue, so in the end, the Colts did end up with a pass rusher from that 26th pick.

Originally Posted by IndyNorm

You could maybe make the argument for 2020, but you're definitely counting your chickens way before they've hatched for the '22 draft class in that statement.

I'm very confident that the Colts have 2 high quality starters from the 2022 draft going forward in Bernhard Raimann and Rodney Thomas II. A good Polian draft produced 3 starters, so for Ballard's 2022 draft to be better than a good Polian draft, and therefore my statement to be right, I need two of Alec Pierce, Jelani Woods, and Nick Cross to develop into at least decent starters, which I don't view as all that unlikely.