Is there a possibility that Ballard is giving Pagano just enough rope to hang himself?

I think he knows and pretty much the whole entire fan base knows that this team isn't going anywhere with Pagano regardless if Luck is health or not.

No. I don't see it.

Unless you mean that he is just letting pagano coach then yes.

The reason I say that is because there were, I thought, obvious moves that Ballard could have made to make the roster better but sat on his hands.

It's possible that his thinking is that with a roster that's criminally undermanned that he might as well let a lameduck coach steward it (and then get fired) as opposed to a potentially worthwhile coach who might have the fanbase sour on him if the team sucks.

Which, yeah, again for Dam. The roster DOES suck and Grigson absolutely dealt Ballard a miserably godawful hand but that does NOT excuse that Pagano is a clearly godawful coach. They are not mutually exclusive.

Most likely he is not in playing shape either. Plus who knows what his contract is like either. If he plays for another team maybe SF is off the hook for paying him.

Too much controversy anyway.

Either way the roster is a f**king mess.

What's sad is that the AFC South is now a competitive division with the F**king Jags looking pretty solid on defense.

Even if we add talent via the draft next year + free agency, we'll again need a great QB to close the talent gap.

To be fair the Jags had one good game against a Texans team with no QB.

Ballard took grigsons terrible team, and possibly made it worse

To be fair, we just got our asses handed to us by the Rams....so.

And last time I checked, Pags is still Head Coach.

Of course people can be critical of him, but just wanted to point out that the draft wasn't done with his scouting team. I want to see what he does there with his own people in place.

I don't know who is pushing for TJ Green to be starting out there, but they need to get that dipshit out of the starting lineup (and realistically, off the team)

Week 1 overreaction at its best.

I believe that when Ballard took over, this was a ship in such rapid descent, it just had to bottom out before you could begin to raise it up. It's too early to praise or criticize Ballard. I just hope that in a few years, we're looking at a healthy Luck and a very solid team.

I generally agree that you can't really judge Ballard until he has a full year to pro scout and draft scout FOR THE COLTS under his belt. Next year's free agency decisions & draft picks will be completely fair game for criticism.

But a few gripes I have in the interim:

* I get what John Simon does and have no qualms with that signing. Jabaal Sheard is just bad and was grossly overpaid. I wasn't a fan of the signing then and still have major qualms now. Rather see a mid-round LB in that spot, even in a weak LB class.

* The Zach Banner thing is kinda frustrating. Grover Stewart a bit less so, but just feels like a Montori Hughes situation all over again.

* But biggest gripe, again, is preaching COMPETITION and making sure the whole word understands that's your thing, and then...

1. Ignoring the QB competition results entirely. Your guy lost and still got the gig.

2. Starting a guy at CB who was never a part of the CB competition.

3. Whatever the fuck is going on with the OL, it wasn't born out of competition. The only guy playing well is the guy you didn't even really allow to compete, oddly... The OL bothers me in general. You can't go from how you ended last year to the complete clusterfuck of the beginning of this year.

All great points. I've harped and harped on # 3 though and it just makes me furious at this guy. Yep we have an apparent long term stud at the position- awesome, good for us! He goes down, and we don't just sit idle, we don't throw our FA in and tell him to figure it out, nope, we cut his ass so an undrafted rookie FA can take the position instead. No one is going to convince me that that singular decision does not have a marked impact on WHY the OL looks like ass! It's a joke of a solution and no, that's not on Grigson, that's not on having a bad QB situation unfolding because we expected our star to be there, that's not even on Cuck, no, all of that lands in the lap of Ballard!

Pagano??? Wasnt green pagano's pick in that draft. That's how I remember it.

I said possibly

But you go down the position groups and it sure doesn't look much better. Rb and dline look improved.

and possibly secondary given time to get healthy and some experience.

I would rather see butler back in slot rather than safety though.

Absolutely. Just like D'Joun Smith was before him...

Well that would explain the stupidity of that decision.

By the end of the Luck era....:rolleyes:

Pagano can... he could f... up an anvil

The Titanic was a "ship in rapid descent"

This has been a hyper-sonic missile crash, and crater is huge

Wait! I thought it was the Niners???

Yeah I don't understand why this hasn't been considered when we're weak at CB and you can throw Hooker and Farley(wholooked great vs the Steelers) in at safeties