Stampede Blue
The personnel moves and the performance of the Colts this season has reflected poorly on the Colts front office and coaching staff.
“The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.” — Albert Einstein
You live and die by your decisions. Chris Ballard and Shane Steichen put their cards on the table and made the gutsiest move of their careers by benching young quarterback Anthony Richardson for veteran Joe Flacco. The way it was handled was as poor as it can possibly be and the sudden return to Richardson as the starter shows there is a lack of a plan behind closed doors in Indianapolis.
The Ballard era has been an interesting one to say the least. Things were off to a nice start with Andrew Luck at the helm and a playoff berth and win in Ballard’s 2nd year with the team. After Luck left due mostly to the negligence and ineptitude of the previous administration, the Colts were on the lookout for new quarterback, but that new quarterback didn’t come around until the 2023 NFL Draft. The Colts drafted Anthony Richardson to rectify years of poor quarterback play.
Going back a bit, Chris Ballard has done a very good job of acquiring talent, especially through the draft. He drafted star players like Quenton Nelson, Jonathan Taylor, Michael Pittman Jr, Josh Downs, Braden Smith, Bernhard Raimann and Grover Stewart... just to name a few. He traded for DeForest Buckner and signed/claimed key players like Kenny Moore, which bolstered an incredibly strong roster. The Colts were/are loaded at many different position, yet the inability to find a quarterback has haunted this team for many years. At the end of the day, a great quarterback can mask an entire team. The teams Andrew Luck quarterbacked were much less talented than the Colts teams of the past few years, yet the Luck teams had a lot more success. So while Ballard did a great job finding talent, he couldn’t find a quarterback.
In his defense, it’s damn hard to find a quarterback, but that’s why he gets paid millions a year.
After years of inexcusable quarterback mistakes, going for Philip Rivers (who was very good but didn’t help the Colts in any way for the future), followed by Carson Wentz and then Matt Ryan, the Colts finally landed a young 1-of-1 player they could finally go the playoffs and contend with. His ceiling was as high as any player in the NFL, but he was raw and needed development. He surely needed more than 10 games to prove himself.
The Colts had a variety of options with him, as they could’ve gone with the Patrick Mahomes approach of letting him sit and learn fully for a year before starting. They could’ve gone with the Josh Allen approach which is to throw him into the fire and learn through reps. They could’ve gone with the Lamar Jackson approach where you introduce him through gadget packages...
