Locked On Colts - Daily Podcast On The Indianapolis Colts - LOCKED ON COLTS -1/30- Indianapolis Colts Hit Home Run, Hire Chris Ballard As GM

Episode Date: January 30, 2017

The #Colts fan base has been instantly revitalized with the news of the hiring of Chris Ballard as GM. Jim Irsay deserves a ton of credit for landing the best candidate to run this team. What does this mean for Chuck Pagano's future? Will Andrew Luck finally have a quality roster around him? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Learn more about our healthy benefits at fepblue.org slash getmore. No, I'm not for sale. You are lockeded On Colts, your daily Indianapolis Colts podcast. Part of the Locked On Podcast Network, your team every day. Welcome back to Locked On Colts, ladies and gentlemen. I'm your host, Matt Dainley, and we've gotten some good news. The Colts GM position has been filled with Chris Ballard, former Chiefs Director of Player Personnel and you know he spent a lot of time in Chicago before that when they had that fantastic defense there in Chicago. Was an area scout for some time

and was moved up you know the ladder considerably through that. He's had multiple requests for interview over the past several years, turned a healthy amount of them down, also taking the interviews and just chosen to go back to wherever he was at currently. So the Colts got themselves, by all accounts, a home run as a GM. Chris Ballard is now the man in Indianapolis, and we can kind of move forward. This is a fantastic draft for Chris Ballard to start his tenure as the Indianapolis Colts GM, and it's just very exciting, very exciting. I think that you could find a lot

of different people and people who are somewhat knowledgeable, hardly at all knowledgeable. And then you could basically find other people that follow the Colts and the NFL at an alarming rate. And I think that you'd get the same answer from all of them, that this is a fantastic hire. I mean, anybody who's heard anything about this guy has nothing but praise about him. People who know him personally love him. Players love him. You know, the Chiefs organization and their fans were not excited to let him go. I think that they're, you know, happy that Dorsey's still there to take it, but I think that they were really hoping that he was the heir to the throne, so to speak, as the GM of the Chiefs. The Colts got themselves an absolute home run, guys.

I don't know how much more I can feed that to you, but this guy is going to potentially bring in exactly what the Colts need to round out this roster. He's been fantastic finding talent when he was in Chicago. Like I said, he helped build that defense that, you know, actually played against the Colts in the Super Bowl a couple years. Following that, they were decent again, you know, but a lot of that defense had been very good for several years. Their offense, you know, it was just kind of garbage, but that was, you know, that's definitely not an issue right now in Indianapolis. Also in Kansas City, he helped bring in guys like Tyreek Hill.

Just, you know, playmakers and defensive specialty all in one. And it's just a very exciting time when the Colts have struggled so much, it seems, as of late, to bring in that kind of a caliber of a player. So the Colts are definitely, you know, in the forefront right now. I think that Ballard coming in gives this entire organization and the fan base complete rejuvenation. It makes the Colts really fall in line with the rest of the pack. I think that, you know, we have the trust, that they have the trust, and that Ballard has the skills to bring in a fantastic roster around him. You know, there's guys like Dee Ford, who were looked well

upon in the draft, but didn't, you know, kind of got bypassed a little bit. A lot of people had issues with this or that about him. But all in all, the biggest thing of it all is that he got guys like that long, lanky, strong hand work, you know, very good fundamental work. And ultimately, that works out. I mean, Dee Ford was on a tear, and he just totally destroyed the Colts when they played them. So, I mean, he finds those guys. He finds those guys who can fit in a defense, who can stand out in a defense, and he also finds those role players that, you know, may not even be given that much credit when they're coming out.

So this is an exciting time, and, you know, couldn't come at a better time with all the scouting that's going on right now for the draft, getting closer and closer to the combine. Not that that's a huge deal as far as anything else, but he's already been scouting people anyways, you know, so he knows playmakers that could make a difference. And the Colts have a few places that they definitely need to improve, especially on the defense, but he's got plenty of guys lined up already. So this is just exciting. We don't have to worry about, you know, is Gregson going to spend $60 million in cap room in free agency poorly? We have a little more of a trust factor with Ballard, I think, immediately without having done anything so far as the GM. I think that the fans especially feel much more relaxed, a lot less stressed out

about what he could possibly do just in free agency alone. And then when you get into the draft, I think regardless of who he drafts, whether he goes offensive line in the first round or if he goes straight to the defense and just plugs away, I think that it doesn't really matter. I think that we're going to just trust the process with him. And I think that it doesn't really matter. I think that we're going to just trust the process with him. And I think that's what we need to do anyways with the new GM. We have to trust that the new guy coming in, especially as highly regarded as he is, that he knows what he's doing. He's been around this area as far as the Midwest, and he's been in this type of a role where he's been relied upon to be helpful

in bringing in that kind of talent to give him that kind of leverage and to give him that kind of leeway and allow him to do his job. And like I said, I don't even know if I have tempered expectations or any expectations at all about what position we're going to go with early, late, middle of the draft. I personally am just excited to see how he goes about it, and I'm also excited to see how he evaluates the talent in his first year. It's going to be something that everybody, I think, is going to be really hopeful and ready to be a part of. Now, as we move on to what's going to happen to Pagano, this, you know, this

started out as, you know, Ballard's the favorite, and he is really wanting to bring in Tobe, or Tobe, I honestly don't know how to pronounce that guy's name, but there's been also, you know, the back and forth, local guys especially, have been saying that they think that Pagano's going to stick around, that Pagano's safe, and that they're going to be, at least for 2017, that Chuck Pagano is going to be the coach of the Colts. And I tell you what, I'm pretty sure that that's a given. I don't think that they're going to have any different, at least in head coach. They did bring in the wide receivers coach. That was hired in. That's a little strange if they were planning on making a change,

a head coach, but not somebody. He's well-respected, too, the guy from Buffalo. His name's not on my mind right now for some reason, but I don't think that they would allow that coaching hire to happen if they planned on making a move, regardless of who the GM was. So I think not only that, but you see Chuck Pagano's statement, how excited he is, talking about working with Ballard. Ballard himself talking about working with Pagano. Pagano's safe. Pagano is going to be here for 2017. There's a few different things about that that I wouldn't even say that I have strong feelings for it. Now, if we were hiring Jimmy Ray, and this is probably completely unfair to him, but I would be probably a little more upset about the reality of Pagano staying only because those two have a personal

relationship. And I think that that could cloud some issues and could cloud judgment as far as whether Pagano deserves to stay or go, whether it's this year or next year. Now, bringing in Ballard and probably more or less if regardless of who they would have brought in. But with him coming in, I mean, first of all, it feels like a waste of a season, though. You know, I mean, you have that. It feels like a waste of a season, almost a lame duck season for Pagano in 2017. It basically feels like he has to just blow the pants off of the organization with his coaching ability in order to stick around, which you can look at one of two ways. Is that a good

thing? Because you just want him gone and you assume that he can't coach that well. I mean, I don't think that he's a great coach, guys. I mean, I don't think that you guys would be too far off of that. I mean, some people love him regardless, but I think that's about his personality as opposed to his coaching style and his ability. Some people are way too close to him as a person to be able to talk about that objectively, and that's a fact. But the other side of that is with him getting that one-year leniency, it really feels like Ballard seems like such a home run. And like I said, that may even be a little too giving as far as what we

think of Ballard already when he hasn't done anything for the Colts yet but it just seems like that's you know a small price to pay for you know possibly oh and hopefully up to 10 years of him being the GM of the Indianapolis Colts. So that's obviously with the prospectus that we assume he's going to bring in talent consistently every year, and we're going to have a team around Andrew Luck. And this offensive line is going to be bolstered just a little bit with the young talent that we have and that they're going to be able to stand out, that this defense is going to be able to tackle and cover and improve from front to back. And that's, you know, that's something that comes with a good GM. They can do that. You know, there's bad years.

Everybody has bad years. But, you know, one year with Pagano does kind of seem like a small price to pay, doesn't it? I mean, you allow him to try to woo you as a coach. If it doesn't happen, he's gone, you know? And then Ballard gets to bring in his own guy that he's familiar with. He's allowed to make this organization his own, so to speak, and then really take the Colts in the direction that he wants to take them. You know, it's really hard to kind of differentiate between the two. It just seems that it's not that big a deal. As much as a lot of us don't want Pagano coaching the Colts, it's just, I mean, it just seems, if it was somebody else, like I said, it would seem like, God, he's going to be the coach,

you know, for the next two or three years. We are screwed. But I don't necessarily feel that way with it being Ballard doing that. Now, here's the other side of that. You know, I guess it's a three-sided coin now. But Ballard, what if Ballard does such a good job of bringing in talent? Pagano's no better of a coach, but it doesn't show over the next few years. We don't really see what kind of a coach Pagano is over the next three years that he's got this talent around him and everybody's pulling their weight and filling holes for everybody else and Pagano can be the same coach he is today but look a lot better because of the talent around him

and he extends his career in Indianapolis by a couple few years. I think that's just as possible. I think that if Ballard does what he has been doing in his past of bringing in quality talent and being able to eyeball these defenders to build strong defenses, then Pagano, regardless of his coaching style and regardless of how competent he is, especially in-game or at halftime making adjustments, he's going to look a hell of a lot better just because the talent is smart enough to play in the right way.

So that part worries me. But at the same time, it's like, do we really want to complain if the Colts are good? The Colts win 13 games and Pagano still sucks as a coach. It's really hard to be upset about that. You know, it's like, we really need a new coach. You know, but then again, the Colts are winning 13 games a year and they've got this defense and we've, you know, we're giving Andrew Luck protection.

He's throwing for 5,000 yards. I mean, it's really weird. It's kind of the good with the bad, you know, laugh now, cry later type thing. It's like, where do we go? What are our real feelings about that? We don't really know. We don't know, and we may not know. A lot of people, I think, are hoping for Pagano to fail and to show that he isn't a head coach quality type guy. But at the same time, we all want this Colts organization to be successful. And it's just a very strange feeling.

Yay, we got Ballard. And then, well, we have Pagano still. But yay, maybe Ballard can cover some of the warts that Pagano brings to the table. But maybe that extends Pagano's career a couple years in Indianapolis. It's really hard to have a very concrete answer or point of view on that kind of situation. It's going to be interesting, guys. I'm excited because I feel like we're going to really see what it's like to have a guy be able to put a team

around a superstar. And for as much of the flack that Bill Polian took when he left, Bill Polian is a Hall of Famer, and Bill Polian did what he was supposed to do. He made the Colts fantastic for a long time. He put much better defenses together than Grigson. And he, maybe there wasn't very good defensive coordinators, but the defense with the talent that they brought, they did well enough. And that may be a similar situation to this. The coaching may be subpar, but when the talent's there, we're not really going to notice the difference. I think that everybody will still point out stupid timeouts. I think everybody will obviously still point out stupid plays like the Colt Anderson,

Griff Whalen fake punt crap. Those kind of things are obviously going to stand out, and I hope that Ballard is objective enough to see that, look, he's just not the guy. We won 13 games, but Pagano's just not head coach quality. Maybe, just maybe, we'll see better talent and we'll see the best of Pagano. That's hard to really want a guy to fail. I don't want him to fail. I don't want him to fail I don't want him here right now but if he can prove somehow that he's a really good coach with really good talent that a makes him one-dimensional as a coach you know not being able to to bring the best out of subpar talent but it also is kind of you know just a double-edged sword. We want that to happen. We want him to

coach these guys up. Um, but the talent may be necessary for Pagano's skillset as far as a coach to be able to coach these guys. So that's kind of where we're at. It's very exciting. We're going to have some guys on this week and we're going to talk about this a little more in depth, get some other point of views on there. You know, this is very fresh right now. So it's kind of just a rambling thing. I just heard about this about 30 minutes ago. So I wanted to get on here and kind of spill my thoughts right off the jump. And, you know, we'll have a little bit more from the senior bowl. We were supposed to have that last week, had a little bit of technical difficulties, uh, getting, uh, another show up for the, for the end of the week, but we should have some of that. We have a little bit more, uh, getting, uh, another show up for the, for the end of the week, but we should

have some of that. We have a little bit more, uh, draft talk going on this week. So we've got a lot of great stuff for you guys this week. Uh, we will have a show at least four times a week for the next several months. So, uh, we're not going to completely fall off the map or anything like that, even when it's the dead period and there's no nothing going on. But we will definitely have something going on here at Locked on Colts. So make sure you guys are following the show on Twitter at Locked on Colts. Myself at mdanley underscore NFL. Locked on Colts Facebook page. Hit me up at lockedoncoltspod at gmail.com.

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