2022 NFL Free Agency

[IndyNorm]

Originally Posted by rm1369

It wouldn’t be hard for them to understand if Ballard did it. Then it would become the correct thing to do and make perfect sense. It’s the questioning that’s the issue.

The only fault in your logic is the “if he wants to try to make a run at a SB this year”. I honestly don’t think he does, at least not at the expense of future years. He wants a SB but I think he believes in the idea of being a really good team for as long as possible and good things will happen. It is certainly possible to win a SB that way, but I don’t think it’s the correct way to go about it. People consistently bring up Polian in defense of Ballard’s methods, but I personally see it as an indictment instead. Polian had, IMO, the best QB to ever play the game and won one SB. They were consistently really, really good though. They could have been less consistent and had higher peaks to go with the lower valleys. Now imagine that Ballard has / is building the same thing without that level of QB. He won’t mortgage the future for a shot now. Not unless Irsay dictates it. According to reports he was willing to miss on Ryan to give a 4th instead of a 3rd. He’ll win every transaction, but still lose (what is for me) the big picture.

Well said. That Ballard doesn't want to make any changes to his process to make a run at the Super Bowl is the point I was trying to make, and in all likelihood by the time he's able to adequately fill all of these gaping holes in the roster father time will have caught up with Ryan. Sad thing is he wouldn't have to "mortgage the future" to bring in some guys. I'm too lazy to look it up, but someone posted a snippet from someone who covers the Colts saying that he could free up ~$40M in cap space by converting salaries to signing bonuses on players he'll probably want to extend when they get to the final year of their contracts anyway (Buckner was one of them).

Also, I couldn't agree more with your final sentence. Ballard seems more concerned with making sure he gets his pre-determined value for every transaction than he does with making the team better, and in doing so misses on the big picture.