Getting it wrong and not prioritizing it are two different things. You mentioned it, but I'll emphasize... taking Nelson at 6 overall and Smith at 37 overall when we already had two first-rounders (Castonzo, Kelly) cannot happen with a GM that doesn't prioritize the OL.

I think everybody acknowledges that Matt Pryor was a bad decision. Even if he was always planned to be temporary, which is evidenced by the rotation with Raimann from the first game. And I'll be the broken record that says we don't know if he tried to bring in a more established guy or who that might have been.

However, nobody saw the OL unit performing like this. Anybody that says they did is lying. Even guys like me and you who were talking back in April about Glow and Reed leaving... we were concerned, but not because we thought career back-up Chris Reed leaving will suddenly make Quenton Nelson have his worst season and we'll give up more sacks in 9 games than we did in 17 games with ball-holding Wentz and we'll be 30th in rushing after producing the rushing champ last year. It's one of the weirdest things we've seen in football.

We agree Hoopsdoc. I just don’t think any coach would be given much of a chance here. If Saturday can get people to start to believe in themselves I would consider that a win. This is a lost season. I am glad Irsay sees that, although he won’t say it

depends on how "success" in this situation is measured. and who is measuring that success.

to me irsay had seen enough to know he needed to go in another direction next season, so he made the move now in hopes of not letting the situation spiral over the next couple months.

irsay is a bit bonkers, but I would assume he doesnt expect saturday to come in and miraculously make us a contender for the rest of this season. I think he brought in saturday to just try and steer the ship straight for the rest of the season. that's the success he is looking for, not letting it turn into a further shit show.

I think he should have had ventrone do this though. I think bringing in an "unexperienced outsider" rather than someone that has been in the building and is more familiar with the players is some of what's gotten under ballard's skin. ventrone seems to be universally liked and probably would have been a good choice to just finish out the year.

i really hope that they have a good interview process and quality candidates come in. I hated the initial choice of mcdaniels and was happy when he backed out. ballard and irsay need to do better this time.

but what the hell do i know.

But really, how do we know that Ballard and Irsay didn't approach Bubba or Fox or Bradley and they simply said "I'm good, thanks"?
I don't think Bubba could have done anything by that move except hurt hit stock going forward.

Nah, I think Jim genuinely believes Saturday can turn this around. He’s harkening back to the glory days of the franchise. Hell, he probably called Peyton.

I agree that Ventrone should have gotten a shot. Keefer was saying that there are a lot of pissed off coaches right now, both in Indy and around the league, that Saturday got this shot without paying any dues at all. Guys work their whole careers for an opportunity like this and here Saturday gets one because Jim likes him. “He’s the right fit” was the only reason Jim would give.

There is really no other logical reason. Even if you think a fresh perspective is needed, you don’t throw the guy in halfway through the season with an awful team and expect his message to get through.

Jim saw the season spiraling out of control and he really believes Jeff Saturday can save it. He’s insane, but I think that’s what he really believes.

It’s going to be a disaster. I don’t think they win another game.

oh I bet there are some pissed off coaches, and players. but I would guess most interim coaches dont end up with the long term job so although the initial reaction is 'pissed off' it probably unwarrented.

now if they go trough the interview process and they hire saturday for a long term plan, well....

I disagree with you though. irsay isnt dense enough to think we can really turn this around this season. he wants a high pick to get a new QB. he knows how important it is to winning in this league.

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Thank you.

I remember making numerous posts last season about complimenting Ballard in regard to building a "complete team" that was not overly-dependent on the starting quarterback (see the Peyton Manning years, followed by the Andrew Luck years.)

The quintessential example of the overly dependence on the starting quarterback was a 3-year stretch between 2010 and 2012.


2010: ) Peyton Manning leads an otherwise flawed team to a 10-6 record, the AFC South division title, and a playoff berth.

2011: ) With Peyton Manning injured and Andrew Luck still playing college football at Stanford, the Colts start the season at 0-13, and finish it at 2-14.

2012: ) Rookie stud quarterback Andrew Luck leads the Colts to an 11-5 record, and a Wildcard playoff berth ....... they in fact, have a better overall record than the Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens, who went 10-6 that season and defeated the Colts in the first round of the playoffs.



Back to Ballard ...... when I was making those comments about him actually building a complete team, and not just giving lip-service to it, I gave numerous examples of why he was indeed doing just that (such as the fact that the Colts had one of the best offensive lines in the entire NFL last season. )I don't recall getting a single argument from anyone here on Colts Freaks about my claim ...... hell, when the Colts were 9-6 last season after a great win over Kyler Murray's Arizona Cardinals on national television, l Chopped Wood l was conceding that he was wrong about Frank Reich !!!




http://www.coltfreaks.com/forum/show...t=Reich&page=8




Here is a thread that I started immediately after that win over the Cardinals last year ...... read all of the comments in that thread, and it will give you an idea of what the general mindset was at Colt Freaks at the time ...... hell, we had posters that were complimenting Carson Wentz !!!


http://www.coltfreaks.com/forum/showthread.php?t=136388

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And look, I'm not picking on anyone and/or singling out Chopped Wood in regard to their comments with my above post ...... I'm simply pointing out that the wind blows in very different directions when a team is winning compared to when they are losing ...... winning covers up all sorts of dirty laundry, while losing brings out the lynch-mob in almost every fan-base in sports.

o

I don't agree with their interpretation of what he said. I don't think he regrets taking Pierce or that he blames local media for forcing him to do that. Local media has little to do with how we draft.

I do think some of the local media are pretty arrogant towards him and think a lot of their own opinions, especially Dakich and some of the radio guys. That query yesterday was going off with schadenfreude yesterday towards Ballard and the rest just about calling him names and everything.

As for his actions, yup, Ballard's actions are where we are with the LT situation. Supposedly Darrisaw and Paye were neck and neck on the draft board and they went with pass rush bc they put a slight more positional importance on it than LT.

yeah, thats a dumb interpretation probably made by someone that doesnt really follow the team that closely.

i have been hammering ballard on that quote, but for the reason that i thought it was a petty thing to say. he should be above that.

his major fuck up was not addressing LT when he had chances, namely leno and darrisaw who were there for the taking.

Because you want the equation to be binary, you are either a SB team or you are picking at the top of the draft. But they wanted to win games while looking for the next QB. I don't think Irsay wants to have a bunch of down years, he saw that in the 80's and 90's. We have a lot of good players on the team, they want to win. They went out and tried two vet QBs and they tried a guy that they hoped would return to being a franchise QB. It didn't work. So Irsay said fuck it and is tanking. You want him to blow the cap out for a QB they don't even know is the answer or not. And yeah there is talent on this team.

I actually was wanting him to do those things, but that was when we had cap space. I wanted more commitment at LT, Ballard likes to clear the room for a rookie to step into a job (Raimann). I would rather get more redundancy. Like I said, the guy isn't perfect. If you want to go find the perfect GM then feel free and let us all know who that is. Because this fanbase was screaming for Frank to be fired and now we have Jeff Saturday. I'll take the guy who is a good drafter and hope he can learn and fix the other aspects of his philosophy.

Hines asked to be traded because they just weren't using him and with Cambell healthy, his role is diminished.

The worst that can happen is you suck and are in cap hell and you stay there. You don't need to be in the top ten to find a Mahomes, that guy went what? 11th? 12th? Saints didn't win a Superbowl with their strategy. The Rams, Bucs, and Broncos have in the last ten years using a vet QB coming into a good team. Eagles won it with freaking Foles. If we made the playoffs he might decide to spend more, but Rivers retired.


I think he wants to find a young QB to build around, use the cap space to get a few extra vets while that QB is on his rookie contract. But we are still in the Alex Smith phase.

The team is competitive, despite having rollercoaster QB play last year with bad kicking they were going to make the playoffs till covid rolled around. Made the playoffs the year before. Wheels came off this year because they messed up the oline. Frank had a top-ten offense every year except this year and the Brisset year despite changing QBs every year. I'm kinda surprised they had the success they did considering how bad the QB play has been at times.


Ballard wants to build through the draft. Sometimes I think that is a detriment. He wants to draft pillar positions if he can. High-character athletic guys. They gambled and lost. It doesn't always work out. But it isn't all bad. The receivers look like they have a bright future. The defense is very good. You can't just look at the mistakes but look at the whole.

It's not five years in, we had those positions filled when he got here. When he got here we needed a franchise DE, a defense, and an offensive line.

I would bet on the guy who is a good talent evaluator filling those positions over the guy who isn't. Whole lotta average GM's out there.

That was a Gruden administration. We can pick another team though if you want.

Pryor regressed, he was the best performer at tackle last year. That is what the analytics came back as. I said it was the most important move in the offseason and I was right. I also pointed out the lack of high investment through the draft since Nelson/Smith just a couple weeks ago.

I will say, the group had been performing at a high level for awhile. It's not like his decisions did not have an effect. Ballard doesn't like to make the competition too tough for a rookie to come in and take over. I think he should have more redundancy at positions personally.

So unless it was all a conspiracy like Polian getting the most immobile QB ever to take over for Manning after he goes down.

I mean two HOF'ers, that is great; but if you get out of the first round it's not good. It's like he was only good at picking in the first. I'm kinda split on him, its an interesting argument.

If they wanted to win they would have kept Brady and Frank and would be starting Ryan. Irsay just said screw it. They must like a QB or two in the draft. At the very least we can get a franchise LT.

If you think keeping Ryan and Reich would have been a winning move well shit, I guess we just disagree I must have been watching a different Colt team these last few months.

I sure hope that’s what’s going on but I don’t believe it. Why on earth would you bring in one of your franchises great historical players to oversee a tank job? That makes no sense.

I think in Jim’s drug addled mind he honestly believes Saturday can turn this around.

Could be that too, or an undercover boss situation. Funny thing is, if they started winning they could make the playoffs. The AFC is completely up for grabs, there is no dominant player this year. We beat the chiefs with all these problems. We will find out in a couple of months.

If you want to win, you keep things in place and try to eliminate the problems you have. You don't create new problems on top of the old. They threw a monkey wrench into the engine to make sure things don't run. Hell the reason we even have wins is that Ryan was getting us there. Not like the run game was helping.

We were not winning shit with Reich/Ryan and this offensive line.

The Colts will regret firing Frank.

No they won't.

Do you have any response to the article? What in it is wrong?

Agree Ballard certainly prioritized OL early in his tenure here, but since 2018 he's essentially rested on his laurels. And his attempts to replace AC at by far most important position on the OL (a 1 year show me contract to a guy coming off an Achilles and a 3rd rounder on a long term project) sure make it look like he's change his priorities towards the OL or doesn't value the LT position as much as he should.

That's somewhat fair. It's possible that Ballard did try to do more at LT and it didn't work out. With how quickly we re-signed Pryor and that there weren't any reports of Ballard meeting w/ any other LT prospects other than Fisher, sure makes it seem like he really didn't try to do more. He certainly could have done more after '20.

Totally fair. A lot of us (including myself) thought Pryor at LT might go bad, but no one thought it would go anywhere near this bad. But it fucking did though and Ballard should feel the heat for this since it's ultimately his responsibility to put the roster together.

I find that hard to believe that Pryor was our top OT last year, but either way he only had 1 start at LT in his entire career. That's a damn small dataset to go off of when making a decision at arguably the 2nd more important position in football.

You're comment on the lack of high investment is what I was getting at. He certainly prioritized OL early on, but after fixing the unit Ballard pretty much rested on his laurels w/ the group. For the most part I think that's understandable, but it's obvious he should have done more and sooner to replace AC at LT.

Yeah, been a fun discussion, and it actually drove me to look up our drafts during the Tobin years to see if there was anyone of note drafted in the later rounds.

I can say that Tobin batted .500 in the 2nd round w/ Dilger in '95 and Adam Meadows in '97 being his hits and Eric Mahlum in '94 and Dedric Mathis in '96 his misses. Mathis was a complete bust only lasting 2 years w/ the Colts. I think Mahlum would have been ok, nothing great, but got hurt in '95 and then had a knee injury in '96 that ended his NFL career. The worst thing about the Mahlum pick was who we passed on to get him: Isaac Bruce, Kevin Mawae, and (get this) 11 time Pro Bowler and HOFer Larry Allen. To be fair Allen was 14 picks after Mahlum, so we weren't the only team who foolishly passed on him.

Other than that the only other players I recognized were 2 3rd rounders: OT Jason Mathews in '94 and DE Bertrand Berry in '97. Berry ended up being a pretty good player, just not for the Colts. He had 65 career sacks, which included 11.5 for DEN in '03 and 14.5 for AZ in '04. Mathews started 31 games for us in '95 and '96 then looks like he was benched in '97. After that he went to Tenn as a backup until '04.

But yeah, not much to write about with all of the other picks.

Edit: Forgot to mention Zack Crockett in the 3rd round in '95. He didn't rush for a ton of yards, but he did stick around in the league for 13 years and had a playoff game for the ages for us at the Chargers in '95.

This is a now league, not a wow look what you did for us the last 4 years league.

For 11 straight games Reich has been the main architect of an offense that has been arguably the worst in the NFL. For those 11 games, I saw no coaching, no emotion, no fight from Reich. He kept burying his head in his play call sheet thinking that he could scheme and out smart the opponent.

People want to say that starting Matt Pryor at LT was on Ballard. No that was on Frank, because he had to options in Kelly and Raimann. Then Frank moves Pryor to RG, watches him not block anybody game after game, yet keeps trotting him out there.

Frank had to go because he failed to realize it's not the X's and O's it's Johnny's and Joe's.

I don’t think his priorities have changed, I think it is simply a symptom of his philosophy. It’s been said a million times on this board - you can’t fill every hole through the draft. He low balled Autry and lost him. Would they have drafted Darrisaw if they didn’t have such a hole at both DE spots going into that draft. I don’t know. He will not “overpay” mid level talent and in theory that sounds good, but it means you go into each season with major holes that the team sees and simply lies about. They simply are waiting until next year and can’t say it.

I’m getting tired of going into seasons knowing they aren’t really trying to win. That’s why the Pacers comparison. That shit erodes your fan base and you damn well know the players see it too. Do you think letting Autry walk for two rookies, one of which was coming off an achilles tear tells the team this is our year? Hell no it doesn’t. Neither does gifting LT to a journeyman guard or a raw 3rd rd rookie who has only played the position for two years. Those moves don’t say “NOW”, they say “EVENTUALLY”. And then when shit falls apart the fans turn on the coach instead of the architect of the “maybe next year culture”. And the team listens. Fuck that.

I understand the value of consistency. I also see the value in Ballard’s talent evaluation. However, unless he changes, Ballard’s “next year” philosophy will continue to drag down this franchise. It will continue to be less than its individual talent suggests. And the anger will quickly turn to apathy.

I'll be stunned if Ballard is here next year, but he's on a long term contract so who knows. Some other team will snatch him up quickly if/when he leaves.

I think he could be a great GM with some tweaks to his philosophy. I’d love to think he is capable of looking around at what’s going on and realizing his responsibility in it, but his BS comment at the press conference says otherwise.

Lol. Frank didn’t have Kelly until week 5, when he got healthy. And Raimann was obviously not ready because he was almost as bad as Pryor.

Pryor got moved to guard because Pinter was just as bad and that’s Pryors natural position.

Frank didn’t suddenly forget how to coach offenses, which is essentially what you are arguing. He didn’t go through 4 seasons with 4 different qbs and always field a competent, if not good offense, and then suddenly forget everything he knew this year. That’s ridiculous.

He failed this year because Ballard failed miserably on the offensive line and Frank got scapegoated. Along with Brady, and to a lesser extent, Matt Ryan.

I personally don’t think Ballard will be here next year.

I do think Frank will be a head coach next year and he will be successful.

Kelly has been on the active roster all season and dressed for every game.

Frank was good for us for a long time. He isn’t anymore, not with this group anyway. Can he be successful with another team? Sure he can. Coaches, like players, eventually lose their touch with players. Happens to everyone except Lombardi. Wherever that dude went they won.

Fair enough but he was injured in training camp and missed all of the preseason. Was questionable for week 1.

That doesn’t materially change my point, however, because the o line problems are far bigger than playing Kelly all season would have fixed.

And that’s the root of every issue this team has had this season.

I’m not sure how you can watch that line fail at literally everything and say well, Frank is clearly the problem.

The problem was, and is, the comprehensive failure of Ballard on the o line

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I think that Reich can be a good head coach if he gets another job ...... but only if he cedes the play-calling responsibilities to the offensive coordinator.

As I pointed out before, a head coach's first line of defense in the proverbial blame game is the offensive coordinator ...... IF the offensive coordinator is the one whom is calling the plays. If the head coach himself is calling the plays and the offense goes to hell, all of the blame falls squarely at the feet of the head coach ...... and that is exactly what happened with Reich and the Colts this season.

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Ballard's not stupid. He has to know he royally fucked up the LT and RG situations, and while that's not the entire reason the OL is now garbage it's a big portion of it.

I agree with this. Whoever our next HC is, I do not wanting him calling plays on either side of the ball.

Unfortunately there are plenty of smart people who are stubborn as fuck. I doubt he changes his philosophy. But we’ll see.

True. Hopefully if Ballard stays on he's learned from this dumpster fire of his causing and becomes the better GM b/c of it. Like you, I have my doubts though.