Indianapolis Colts general manager Chris Ballard knew he had to stick up for his defensive backs. So, fresh off a season-ending loss to the Houston Texans, Ballard directed the blame away from his inexperienced players on the back end and pointed the finger squarely at himself.
“We went young in the secondary and look, there were some rough moments at times, and I don’t completely put that on them,” Ballard said in January. “I put that more on me, but how do you ever develop any continuity, especially with your own guys if you don’t just play them? So, I decided to go young.”
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That decision may have cost Indianapolis a playoff berth last season, and nearly eight months later, Ballard is singing the same tune.
“We’ll continue to let these guys grow and come on,” Ballard said last week of his young and inexperienced secondary. “They don’t become players without playing. I think sometimes we forget that.”
Indianapolis is running it back with a nearly identical secondary. The team’s most notable offseason addition to that unit? Claiming slot cornerback Samuel Womack III — who’s started one game in his first two NFL seasons — off waivers from the San Francisco 49ers. By not adding a proven veteran this offseason, Ballard is taking another huge gamble that almost feels like deja vu. And at some point the question needs to be asked: Should he be trusted to roll the dice again? His recent track record with cornerbacks isn’t encouraging.
And actually, his overall track record isn’t so encouraging, either. Through seven years as the Colts general manager, Ballard has won … well, almost nothing of consequence.
His regular-season record is 54-60-1 (.474) — 18th in the NFL since 2017 — which doesn’t put him in the upper quartile of anything. He has two playoff berths, one playoff win in 2018 and zero AFC South titles. Every other team in the division has won the division crown at least twice during Ballard’s tenure. The Jacksonville Jaguars and Texans have even bottomed out, selected a new franchise QB and reclaimed the throne while Indianapolis’ drought has continued.
Asked directly why he should be trusted to turn the team around, knowing the secondary looks almost the same as the one that failed last season, Ballard stated his case.
“I guess maybe because of my DNA,” he said last week. “I’ve always had a strong belief in myself and those around me, a strong belief in what we do. If you just kind of look through the first few years — we made the playoffs two of the first four. Had to overcome a quarterback retiring on us, still found a way. I thought our ’20 team was excellent. We just lost a tough game to Buffalo that ended up being a really good team. I thought in ’21 was another really good football team, and it all kind of fell apart.
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“The last three years, not making the playoffs, it’s a disappointment. I’m not going to sit here and say it wasn’t, but I still have a very strong belief in what we’re doing, how we’re doing it and how we’re going to get there. … Either you believe for something or you believe nothing. It’s easy to vacillate, easy to vacillate and go with what the world wants you to do. You either believe in something or you don’t. It’s what we believe. If it gets me fired, so be it.”
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The last line is the kicker and a bit telling about why Ballard, even as he’s stared mediocrity in the face for nearly a decade, said he doesn’t feel like he’s on the hot seat. Why would he? Colts owner Jim Irsay compared him to Michael Jordan in 2022, the same year Indianapolis finished 4-12-1 for its worst record since Andrew Luck missed the entire season in 2017 due to a shoulder injury. In fairness to Ballard, the 2022 campaign wasn’t solely his fault as Irsay had a hand in two huge decisions — benching Matt Ryan in favor of Sam Ehlinger and hiring Jeff Saturday to replace the freshly fired Frank Reich — that sent that season spiraling down the drain.
Even if you’re still thinking, “Most GMs wouldn’t have lasted this long, regardless of Luck’s retirement or Saturday’s disastrous stint as an interim coach,” you’re right. Irsay has exercised patience that’s become almost extinct in the modern NFL.
Think about the company Ballard now keeps in terms of his fellow GMs. He is one of four hired in 2017 who still has his job, making him one of the longest-tenured GMs in the league (four-way tie for seventh). But his accomplishments, or lack thereof, pale in comparison to his compatriots.
GM | Year hired ▼ | Regular-season record (win %) | Divison titles | Playoff appearances (record) | Conf. title games (record) | Super Bowls (record) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
2017 | 85-30 (.739) | 7 | 7 (15-4) | 6 (4-2) | 4 (3-1) | |
2017 | 73-41 (.640) | 4 | 6 (5-6) | 1 (0-1) | 0 | |
2017 | 64-51 (.557) | 3 | 4 (8-4) | 4 (2-2) | 2 (0-2) | |
2017 | 54-60-1 (.474) | 0 | 2 (1-2) | 0 | 0 | |
2016 | 67-64 (.511) | 0 | 3 (0-3) | 0 | 0 | |
2014 | 75-88 (.460) | 3 | 4 (6-3) | 1 (1-0) | 1 (1-0) | |
2012 | 101-93-1 (.521) | 3 | 5 (7-4) | 2 (2-0) | 2 (1-1) | |
2010 | 137-89-1 (.606) | 5 | 10 (10-9) | 2 (2-0) | 2 (1-1) | |
2010 | 125-101-1 (.553) | 5 | 8 (6-7) | 2 (2-0) | 2 (1-1) | |
2002 | 203-154 (.572) | 7 | 9 (9-8) | 3 (1-2) | 1 (1-0) |
Of the top 10 longest-tenured GMs, Ballard is one of two who has never won a division crown. Miami’s Chris Grier is 0-for-8, but Grier still owns an above-.500 record at 67-64. Ballard’s 54-60-1 record (.474) is only superior to Tampa Bay’s Jason Licht (75-88, .460). Of course, Licht walks around with a Super Bowl ring on his finger and has won three consecutive NFC South titles.
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Beyond his subpar record, Ballard has also presided over the hiring of four head coaches. Well, really three, but he did try to hire Josh McDaniels, who left him at the altar to remain in New England. McDaniels has since been hired and fired by the Las Vegas Raiders. Reich (since hired and fired in Carolina), Saturday and now Shane Steichen have all coached the Colts during Ballard’s reign.
You could suggest that the Saturday move wasn’t really Ballard’s call by pointing out that the owner did something his GM — the person he pays to run his football team — didn’t want to do, but that isn’t exactly a point in the GM’s favor, is it?
And then there’s the quarterbacks. Losing Luck was an unprecedented blow. But Ballard hasn’t bounced back. He’s currently on his fourth attempt to solve the problem (not counting Jacoby Brissett and the year Luck retired).
There was Philip Rivers in 2020, for which Ballard deserves a lot of credit. Rivers was a great but fleeting addition to the team as he retired following his lone campaign in Indy that ended in a narrow loss to the Bills in the wild-card round. The Colts haven’t been back to the playoffs since.
Carson Wentz — the quarterback Ballard traded a first-round pick for — wasn’t the answer. Neither was Matt Ryan, who looked like a shell of himself in 2022 behind the Colts’ turnstile offensive line.
All of it has led Ballard to the decision that could flip the entire narrative about his largely fruitless past: drafting dual-threat QB Anthony Richardson.
Ballard is still considered by many to be one of the best talent evaluators in the NFL Draft, evidenced by players like Jonathan Taylor, Michael Pittman Jr. and Grover Stewart — all of whom recently cashed in with lucrative deals to remain in Indy. “We’re at 25 years of him telling me months in advance which dudes without draftable grades will get selected by Day 2,” one agent recently told The Athletic in Ben Standig’s annual agent survey.
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However, Ballard’s track record isn’t quite as impressive over the past six seasons (at least not yet). Since his famed class in 2018 (Quenton Nelson, Shaq Leonard, Braden Smith, Tyquan Lewis), Ballard has drafted one player who has been selected to the Pro Bowl: Taylor made it in 2021 for his lone appearance.
The Pro Bowl isn’t everything, of course. Pittman, Bobby Okereke, Kwity Paye and others have all proven to be solid picks if not stars at their positions. But Ballard needs a star, and he needs that star to be Richardson. He has never drafted a quarterback as high as Richardson, who started 13 games at Florida before becoming the No. 4 pick in 2023. The 22-year-old has a lot of pressure on his shoulders, one of which was surgically repaired last October. If he turns out to be as special as his potential suggests he could be, then everything else that came before this won’t matter. The lack of wins. The misfires on picks and coaches. All will be forgiven.
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Steichen, who certainly looked the part as a rookie head coach last season, will help Richardson steer. Where exactly the Colts are headed in 2024 remains to be seen.
“We feel like we will be in the mix,” Ballard said last week. “We were in the mix a year ago. … Sometimes the scars are good for you. Hard times can be good for you. Defeat, failure — can be good for you.”
Or, they could simply be another step on the hamster wheel of Ballard’s mediocrity.
(Photo: Jeffrey Brown / Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
