Stampede Blue
This was the season it was finally supposed to change. The Colts had found a leader in Daniel Jones, a true starting quarterback. The offense was clicking, Jonathan Taylor was an MVP-candidate, the defense was doing much better, and the Colts were not only winning games, but destroying opponents, climbing to an AFC leading 7-1 record. What made things even better is that the Houston Texans had a terrible start, and the Jaguars were maddeningly inconsistent. The cracks started to show in a Week 9 loss in Pittsburgh, where a struggling rival managed to completely shut down the Colts’ offense, but the doubts were cast aside because the Colts always struggle in Pittsburgh, and because right the next week the Colts managed to beat the Falcons in London to go into their bye-week 8-2.
How good everything was back then. The Colts then traded two 1st round picks for All-Pro cornerback Sauce Gardner, going all-in on this core. Missing the playoffs was completely out of the question at that point, but fast forward two months and here we are, 8-8, eliminated from playoff contention, and in the midst of a six-game losing streak. The starting quarterback tore his Achilles, the All-Pro defensive tackle is dealing with potential career-ending nerve injuries, and the team still has to travel to Houston to face a red-hot Texans’ team next Sunday.
8-9 is the most likely outcome this season, uncertainty at the quarterback position, and no 1st round pick. The franchise is in terrible conditions, and changes need to be made as soon as possible. Starting from the top, Chris Ballard absolutely has to go. I cannot remember a general manager that got so many opportunities despite failing to get his team to the playoffs. I could not care less about him being good at drafting interior offensive linemen late in the draft, when the team had a different Week 1 starting quarterback every single year since Andrew Luck retired, and is laughably bad at selecting edge rushers.
Let’s take a look at every single edge rusher drafted by Chris Ballard in the first three rounds, just for fun:
Of that list, Latu and Tuimoloau will probably be the only two remaining on the roster, and it is worth noting that JTT has been a healthy scratch several games this year, and has yet to play >50% of the snaps in a match. Couple that with letting a talented edge-rusher in Denico Autry go to the Titans and you have a terrible management of the most important position on defense.
There is not much need to go into detail of Ballard’s team management other than to go over his...
