Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - INDIANAPOLIS COLTS: Chris Ballard Continues Developing Where Fans Have Been BEGGING

Starting point is 00:00:01 Don't look now, but Colts GM, Chris Ballard might just be taking the next step in his evolution toward becoming a successful NFL executive. Let's get to it. You are Locked on Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. All right, welcome to Locked on Colts, part of the Locked On podcast network. Now the number one sports podcast network out there. Hello, everybody.

Starting point is 00:00:35 I am Jake Arthur. your Indianapolis Colts beatwriter for Roundtable Sports. And today we continue to stoke the flames that is Indianapolis Colts Free Agency. It's already been an eventful last several days for them. We're only into day three of the official start of free agency. And already the Colts have made plenty of news. And we know there's way more to come. There's still some big fish dangling out there that they haven't quite wrangled in just yet.

Starting point is 00:01:03 But the subject of today's show really, is Chris Ballard. For two straight years now, I think the Colts GM has shown some real growth in his development as an executive. Now, I know we've all given Ballard proper flack. Like on this show, we obscured him. We've called for his job before. You might be cursing his name, just hearing me say it. But credit where credit is due, I do want to say that Ballard does seem to be doing more. and kind of answering the call of things that a lot of us have been begging for the Colts to do over the last several years. So just last year, for example, the Colts finally bought into the hole you've got a pay-to-play thing. They were way more aggressive in the way they pursued guys and the way that they closed deals with guys.

Starting point is 00:01:57 They handed out big money contracts to the Charverius Ward, Cam Bynum. They went out and got Daniel Jones, of course. they got a good role player like Neville Gallimore. Now that all came with mixed results. You know, Daniel Jones, that was hot until it wasn't. He had the fibula injury and he had the Achilles injury, of course, which, you know, he's only played one complete season in his career. So could you see injuries coming?

Starting point is 00:02:23 Sure. But at the same time, he now has momentum and leverage. And like, teams want him again. And the Colts are willing to pay him very significant money, which we will. see anytime in the coming days when this multi-year deal comes through. And then, you know, Charverius War, that actually was a good signing. When he was on the field, he was quite good in his first year here in Indy, but the concussions, no one can see that coming. He had never had concussions documented in his career, and he separate three of them this year to the point

Starting point is 00:02:58 where he was discussed in retirement. So it wasn't a bad signing. Like there was logic to the signing, it just hasn't worked out to this point. However, Cam Bynum and Neville Gallimore, both those players had career years in 2025. Gallimore actually parlayed that into a new deal with the Bears. So the Colts were significant players last year, and I think they're going to have to do it again this year, which we've already kind of started to see some signs just in a different way than we saw last year. But I think the actual paying to bring in big players is certainly coming. And of course, that includes Alec Pierce who got a record-breaking deal just on Monday. But this year, what we were really looking to see Chris Ballard do was start to kind of part with some of his guys. Now,

Starting point is 00:03:47 Ballard is kind of, you know, yielded before that almost to a fault, he gets a little too emotionally invested in some guys. Now there's nothing wrong with that, like as a person, like to really care about the people who are around you, like, yeah, that makes you a great person. However, does it make you a great GM? Probably not. You know, the best GMs in this league get ahead of, you know, contracts that guys have that are too bloated or players that are getting past their prime, and they get out of those situations before it gets too late. The Colts, we've not really seen that from him before. You know, he doesn't, Ballard doesn't really kill contracts before they're up. Sometimes maybe they'll restructure them to create more, some more like salary cap room,

Starting point is 00:04:37 but they don't outright get out of bad contracts. They don't usually have a ton of them, but when players start to get past their prime and they're not worth that money anymore, they tend to let those contracts right out and they have hardly ever traded guys away that they really, really liked. But now what we've seen, you know, just over last weekend, they traded Zaire Franklin away, which freed up about $6 million in salary cap space, and they got a solid backup defensive tackle in exchange there in Colby Wooden. They then traded away Michael Pittman, Jr. and a seventh round pick to the Pittsburgh Steelers and got a six-round pick in return. That opened up about $24 million in cap space. They let Braden Smith walk in free agency. He got

Starting point is 00:05:21 13 and a half million guaranteed from the Texans. They let Cody Paywalk. He got 31 million guaranteed from the Raiders. And those were all moves that we knew they had, those were all guys we knew they had to let walk. Braden Smith was, eh, maybe, but, you know, they have a guy in Jalen Travis now who's on a rookie contract that can replace Smith. He's maybe not going to play as well as Smith right away, but we saw some good football from him last year. And you can see like, this is the next step. You let this more expensive guy, this veteran walk. So we've seen them be willing to do that. And all those guys I mentioned that they've parted with, they have been drafted by the Colts and developed by the Colts. They've been with the team for an average of 6.8 years. And so for the Colts

Starting point is 00:06:10 to not only let guys walk in for agency, because that's almost taking the easy way out, is, okay, well, they hit the market and they got good deals elsewhere. And you know, what can you do? but actually trading guys, like that shows a commitment to getting back assets where you possibly can. So I very much appreciate what we're seeing from Chris Ballard there as well as the willingness to spend big bucks that we've seen last year. And even now this year, again, with Alec Pierce, that's your own player. So it's like not quite as exciting. But Pierce was the most, was going to be the most highly coveted free agent in the entire market this year. year and the Colts landed him like five minutes into the window opening. So kudos to Chris Ballard

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Starting point is 00:09:13 Head to fandle.com to get started. That's fandul.com. VanDuel. Play your game. All right. Welcome back every dayers. are diving into Colts Free Agency here and specifically the job that Chris Ballard has done. So we first talked about his new willingness to kind of part with veteran players that he's

Starting point is 00:09:35 been around for years, whereas he didn't used to get out of those contracts early or trade players or cut players like that. He's now done it. He's traded a couple of the biggest leaders in the team and let some other guys that have been around for a while walk in free agency. But there are still some things to do. First and foremost, get Daniel Jones multi-year deal done. The transition tag is not feasible because you cannot let the guy have a $37.8 million cap hit this year. That's not to say he can't be making $37.8 million per year on average.

Starting point is 00:10:12 But when you sign these players to multi-year deals, you kind of control what the cap is each year. Feasibly, it could be $10 or $15 million just on the cap. If you give a huge dining bonus or there's a lot of guaranteed money tied into that, it just doesn't come off of this year's cap. Like look at Sauce Gardner's deal last year that the Jets gave him. He's very, very cheap for the Colts this year. Despite making a ton of money overall, the cap hit is very low.

Starting point is 00:10:44 So that's what you could do with Jones here. If you get his cap hit to like 20 or 25 million this year, that opens up a good deal of space for you. You can even go lower if you give him like a, an enormous signing bonus. Like Alec Pearson, they got a 60 million upfront guaranteed at signing. So you do something like that with Jones and you've got yourself a lot of wiggle room to work with. Next up, trade Anthony Richardson Senior and Jalen Jones. So Anthony's already on the trade block. You know that's going to happen. It took Zyra Franklin being on the trade block like a few

Starting point is 00:11:15 days for them to find a suitor and get him out to Green Bay. So Anthony, as long as teams are cool with like the eye injury and the progress that he's making, I think there will be suitors out there for him. I'm sure the cults have already had conversations. But, I mean, look at this whole Max Crosby thing that happened tonight where the Ravens backed out because they failed the physical for Max Crosby. This is a quarterback in his eye that we're talking about with Anthony Richardson Senior. So maybe that makes things murky with trading him.

Starting point is 00:11:51 but I still do ultimately think a deal gets done. I think the best you're probably looking at is like a fourth or a fifth round. They maybe even could take like when I can't think of the term right now, of course, but basically a trade that escalates where, you know, it could be a six rounder, but if he plays 70% of the snaps becomes a fifth rounder, a conditional pick. That's what I mean. It's late, so I can't think clearly right now. But it could be a conditional pick for the next year.

Starting point is 00:12:21 but ideally you would get like a fourth or a fifth round pick for Anthony. You want that made-round pick. You don't want it to have to be a late round, but whatever you can get at this point. And then Jalen Jones, I like Jalen Jones. I just don't think he really fits this defense. And obviously Loua and Ruma doesn't think so either

Starting point is 00:12:40 because Jones hardly saw the field. There was a few opportunities for him to do so. One of them, he looked great. He shut down D.K. Matt Caff against the Steelers. But then he had a couple of games later in the season, Texans and Jaguars that were he played extensively and it was awful. So Jalen Jones, he's probably not going to play much if he were to stay on the roster. The guy's got some value. Trade him for like a seventh round pick somewhere.

Starting point is 00:13:06 He has two four years of starting experience. Maybe you could even get a sixth form. Crazy stuff. I don't know. But you go ahead and get another draft pick out of that. They currently are projected to have seven picks in the draft, a second, a third, a fourth. a fifth, they'll get a sixth from the Steelers, and they have two sevenths because they got to give the Steelers one of their three.

Starting point is 00:13:27 So that's seven picks again, but you trade Richardson, you trade Jones. That winds up being nine, and then you got a bunch of picks on day three. That's more ammo to maybe move up in like the third round or so if there's a player that you really like. So it's just about creating more assets in salary cap space and draft picks, because obviously Jaylon Jones makes more money than a normal seventh round. rounder does now because of incentives in his contract. He's far outplayed what a seventh rounder would normally do.

Starting point is 00:13:58 And then Anthony Richardson, you all float about $5 million with him as well because there's a roster bonus involved. Next up, now that we're looking at some veteran players on the pre-agent market still, you can have one but not both of Moe Alley Cox and Drew Oval Tree. That is redundant. I do understand both of them are good blockers and they can add a little diversity to what you can do on offense, but you do not need both of them. You maybe don't even

Starting point is 00:14:27 resign either of them, but if you're going to do it, just one, preferably Mo L.A. Cox, again, you do not need both of them, Chris. We kind of went through this last year. And then the same thing, a defensive end, go ahead and let Samson, Ebukom and Taekwon Lewis walk. It already kind of seems like a foregone conclusion with Samson Ebukom. You know, we saw recently an insider out they're kind of trying to drum up interest likely, you know, in favor of the age of there. Tychoa Lewis, I've heard very little about any suitors and for agency to this point. But regardless, you're trying to get younger and faster on defense. You're trying to give the defensive front some more juice. Let these 30-plus-year-old dudes walk. They did not look all that great last year. You gain very little from bringing them

Starting point is 00:15:14 back. Bringing an Arden Key was already a big upgrade over, let's say, Taekone, Louis, probably Samson Ebukom as well. So just keep that going. Like bring in, make little, at least little upgrades over what you had before, and then you're looking at overall progress. Have a hard financial line on Nick Cross is the next one. So Nick Cross at safety, really good player. I would like to have Nick Cross back if I'm the Colts.

Starting point is 00:15:45 However, you cannot have that much financially tied up into your second. because again, Charverius Ford's making huge money. Sauce Gardner is making huge money. You gave Kim Bynum a big deal. Can he more make significant money for a slot? Can you really sock 10 plus million a year into yet another defensive player in the secondary? Probably not. The safety market's not been going great so far.

Starting point is 00:16:11 So if Nick Cross is available at like $6, 7, 8 million, go ahead. But if it's starting to get to 10 or more. probably just have that hard line and let them walk, try and find another safety out there, see what you like with Hunter Woller. You can maybe draft somebody. Have a hard financial line on cross because you just can't have that much money tied up into your secondary. And then that's really it, guys. There's not much more to do.

Starting point is 00:16:41 After the things I just mentioned, we're simply just letting guys walk out the door. There's a couple trades. I would like to see them execute again. Anthony Richardson and Jay-Len. Jones. Those are probably your two most tradable guys left at this point. But yeah, you can you could do extensions as well for guys like Quentin Nelson, Jonathan Taylor, but that's not really unbecoming of Chris Ballard. Like he'll extend some guys. That's not really tough decisions for him. Letting guys go and trading guys to get these extra assets. That would continue to be kind

Starting point is 00:17:16 of bucking the trend of what we've seen from him in the past. But he had off to a good start to this off season. So just keep it up, execute some of these missions and some of the homework we have given you here, Chris. I know I'm not alone in suggesting these things. So that's pretty much it for this little mini episode now. Hopefully we get some more news on Daniel Jones coming down the pipe. Whether or not Tri-Hendrickson is going to be a Colt or not, almost doesn't matter at this point. Just pick somewhere.

Starting point is 00:17:44 We're going to have more news for you, though. So keep you tuned here to lock on Colts on YouTube and wherever you listen to podcasts. make sure you subscribe if you don't already so that you get all the latest episodes if you don't already again follow atlocked on colts at jacarthur nfl and at zach hex too on socials and remember if you never miss an episode then the everyday club is built just for you get our audio ad free plus a members only discord access that thing is hopping right now during free agency uh the guys in there we see new people in there all the time. People keep bringing new rumors to us. It's fun to discuss these things.

Starting point is 00:18:22 And we're running a special on it right now. Use code free agency with no space. And you're going to get a free month of the Every Dare Club. Just follow the link in our show notes. And with that, you guys have a great day. And I'm sure we'll be talking to you sooner rather than later.

Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - INDIANAPOLIS COLTS: Chris Ballard Continues Developing Where Fans Have Been BEGGING

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