Denver caught their rainbow

[Dam8610]

Originally Posted by ChaosTheory

Other than that, Ballard is not in Polian's league. But that wasn't the discussion.

I just looked at this. Originally I was going to just say that Ballard's 2018 would beat any of Polian's drafts (which it would, 2003 is Polian's best contender), but then I started comparing their draft histories, and I will confidently say that Ballard is better at drafting talent than Polian was, primarily due to Ballard's much greater level of success with Day 2 picks, which Polian had a notoriously bad track record with. I would say let's look at Ballard's best draft, but to do that, you'd have to first choose which is better between 2018 and 2020. For comparison sake:

**** = Made an All-Pro team
*** = Made a Pro Bowl team
** = Starter or starter level contributions
* = quality backup that positively impacted the team

2018
Quenton Nelson****
Shaquille Leonard****
Braden Smith**
Kemoko Turay
Tyquan Lewis*
Nyheim Hines*
Daurice Fountain
Jordan Wilkins
Deon Cain
Matthew Adams
Zaire Franklin**

2020
DeForest Buckner**** (via trade of the 13th overall pick to SF)
Michael Pittman Jr.**
Jonathan Taylor****
Julian Blackmon**
Jacob Eason
Danny Pinter*
Robert Windsor
Isaiah Rodgers**
Dezmon Patmon
Jordan Glasgow

Let's throw 2022 in for fun, because I see that class rivaling these two in a few years, which only speaks to Ballard's drafting acumen:

2022
Alec Pierce**
Jelani Woods*
Bernhard Raimann**
Nick Cross*
Eric Johnson
Andrew Ogletree
Curtis Brooks
Rodney Thomas II**

I would argue all three of the above classes are or have the potential to be better than Polian's best draft class, which IMO is 2003, but I'll post what I believe to be his 3 best draft classes for comparison sake:

2003
Dallas Clark****
Mike Doss**
Donald Strickland
Steve Scuillo
Robert Mathis****
Keyon Whiteside
Cato June***
Makoa Freitas

2006
Joseph Addai***
Tim Jennings***
Freddy Keiaho**
Michael Toudouze
Charlie Johnson**
Antoine Bethea***
T.J. Rushing*

2001
Reggie Wayne****
Idrees Bashir**
Cory Bird
Ryan Diem**
Raymond Walls
Jason Doering*
Rick DeMulling**

If you look at the results side by side, it's scary to think what Chris Ballard might be able to do with a franchise QB and a full array of draft picks every year. Time will tell if Ballard is the better GM, but so far he's outdueling a Hall of Famer in an area both consider to be paramount to team building.