Sure I do, but it's not like Ballard is letting go of Antoine Bethea and Freeney, like Grigson did.

Agreed, Simon is somewhat of a head-scratcher, but it is not like after the switch to 4-3 many people did not think his days were numbered. Fountain is a 5th round pick and a PS candidate who was not doing shit in camp and the preseason from what I can gather.

You're missing the point. You can't be both cheap in free agency (hence why Howard WAS a top 10 paid player on roster) and ineffective at drafting (Ballard is until proven otherwise; not exactly difficult for a rookie to make this 53 and yet...)

Ballard keeps making this team worse

Meh, not sure what you expect. Either people go on record and state their concerns / displeasure with moves or you put on the blue hued glasses and say all is well. At least until the wheels fall off. I’d prefer they be stated and people own them.

I reserve judgment until I see a few regular season games. If it is a train wreck then, I will light all of your torches. If not, I will be pleasantly surprised.

Agreed. I desperately want his approach to succeed but I’m struggling to understand the reasoning behind some of his decisions. I suppose I’ll just try to remain hopeful until I see the results on the field.

I don’t really think anyone is calling for Ballard to be fired. This is only year two and regardless if we like his approach or not I think most or us realize you can’t change GMs this soon. That’s some Browns level shit and a guaranteed way to waste Lucks career. That would be alarmist and an overreaction IMO. Not simply pointing out concerns with his approach.

I certainly hope my concerns about his methods and decisions are misplaced. I’d prefer the team be good than for me to be right. My fear is that Luck, as he did with Grigson and Pagano, will mask Ballard’s failures. A fully healthy Luck gives even a shit roster a chance at 6-8 wins. Even in the improved AFC south. And this is a shit roster. But I have a feeling 6-8 wins will have many defending Ballard even if the rest of the roster performs as poorly as it appears constructed. People will point to rookies putting up numbers and how many are starters etc to defend his decisions. Ignoring how much easier it is to put up irrelevant stats and have a lot of draft picks “contribute” when you make sure there is little veteran competition to contend with.

“...and if they win the job, then we’ll move on from the other guy. But you can’t preach competition and not live it.” Great quote from Ballard. Would be even better if he actually meant it.

I'll admit that I'm starting to lose some faith in Ballard, but I'm also going to reserve judgement until I see a few games. I just don't know if an NFL version of the 76ers rebuild plus guys from the scrap pile will be very effective. We're going to find out.

Simon was cut to get Turay and Basham more snaps for their development. The goal is clearly to make this team better by 2019/2020. It’ll be a fun year to evaluate guys and monitor progress. I’m just a little irritated that won’t include Deon Cain.

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.

The whole Simon thing is a head scratcher from the start of the offseason. True he's a much better fit as a 3-4 LB than a 4-3, but we have such little talent at LB that he probably was the best SAM LB on the team. Still he was moved to DE, outperformed his competition at DE and was still cut. Just doesn't make much sense on such a talent ridden D.

A different topic, but does anyone have any idea why Tyquan Lewis wasn't put on IR to return? Since he's out for half the season seems like stashing him there to open up a roster spot for now would have been a good idea.

I am not 100% on this, but I think for him to return during the season he has to be on the final preseason 53 man list. I expect he will be moved to IR shortly after that.

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.

Couldn't agree more !!

Yeah; I'd say this roster is easily 2-3 years away from competing. And that may be generous.

I'm still stoked to watch Luck play, and there are players I'll be interested to watch in general. I don't feel nearly as burdened watching the 2018 Colts as the 2017 Colts, which were just a slog to get through 4 quarters watching.

But even the most homery homers have to look at this roster and realize how much it sucks. Probably the worst Colts roster since, what, 1997?

Tanking the season for a shot at Ed Oliver.

I guess I'm so homey that I don't think anyone has any idea whatsoever how good or how bad this roster is right now. Maybe these guys are just athletes that don't ever get how to play together or maybe they are the building blocks of a dynasty. Probably more of the former if you were a betting person but that is what is so great about sports, nobody knows. Record be damned, I learned thru many many years as a Colt fan, before Peyton rescued me, how to enjoy watching a not so great team. If it comes to that, will still be here rooting and enjoying at least some part of the season.

You are correct! We really don't know. All we can do is guess. I hope my guess is better than the guess of those who think we are a team in the running for the top pick.

You don’t have to have on blue colored glasses to enjoy the season. Just because I don’t agree with Ballard’s vision doesn’t mean I’m not looking forward to the season or that I won’t cheer like crazy for these young guys. I hated the Nelson pick, still do, but you can bet I love watching him drive D linemen into the ground. I’m just not going to lie to myself about what’s going on. What I see is a piss poor roster.

As pessimistic as I am about the methods I don’t think they will be in the running for a top pick. Luck is worth 6-8 wins. That’s the frustrating part - Ballard is wasting the advantage he’s been given.

They'll be in the top 10 of the next draft, possibly the top 5 again. Supposedly this is a deep draft for defensive players, so Ballard better take advantage of it and stop taking project players.

Well Delaire and Pipkins didn’t last long, according to PFT they have been waived.

Seems like the Colts are tanking this year. Ballard wants another top 5 draft pick.

They played well. That is unacceptable.

Those two looked like they had potential, what is Ballard thinking?

Wow, Ballard sure is willing to waste Andrew Luck's best years. I swear he's trying to make this roster worse, not better.

Andrew Luck coming back will put butts in seats that would otherwise be empty. Frank Reich will have somewhat of the same affect, but it has to be better than the "vanilla" preseason look. If it isn't, seats will be empty by mid November anyway.

Fountain to the PS.
https://twitter.com/zkeefer/status/1...461914112?s=21

Also Lewis to IR
https://twitter.com/holderstephen/st...235601926?s=21

He’s thinking that he’s in year two of a four year rebuild, if the Colts stumble into two or three wins, good, if not, he’s got a top draft pick next year, and a ton of cash that he can rollover! If I was Luck I would be thinking about playing out my contract or ask to be traded to a contender. Yeah I’m over reacting but damn, this team has no chance this year.

Isn't that what we all thought about the 2012 team?

What a load of crap. I don’t like the message that is being sent to the players. The goal of “earning” a roster spot is tantamount to chasing windmills.