Indianapolis Colts GM needs to put on his big-boy pants and get QB in 2023 NFL draft |Opinion
INDIANAPOLIS — Even now, after four years of Groundhog Day around here, Indianapolis Colts general manager Chris Ballard doesn’t want to take a quarterback in the first round of the 2023 NFL Draft. He’ll probably do it, because he has no other choice, but he’d rather not. You can hear it in his response to the question, even now, after four years of Carson Wentz and Bill Murray and Matt Ryan and Needlenose Ned Ryerson failing under center.
"Taking one in the first round will get y'all off my (butt) for a little bit," he said, "but the second it doesn’t work out, I’ll be the first one run out of the building."
That’s a Chris Ballard quote from, let’s see, pick a year. Ah, yes. That’s a quote from last year. But he says something along those lines every year, and please, do Ballard the courtesy of taking him at his word. He’s a guy who says what he means and means what he says, and for four years that’s what he has said when asked about drafting a quarterback.
It’s what he said again Tuesday in his public postmortem of the 2022 Indianapolis Colts, and this is a direct quote when someone asked him – OK, it was me – if it was time to please, pretty please, draft a quarterback in Round 1:
"I can take one," he said, "and y’all are going to celebrate it and say we’ve got this savior for the Colts. If he doesn’t play well (you’ll say), ‘Why’d you take that guy?’"
Correct on both parts, but you signed up for this job. So do it.
Trade with Chicago for the No. 1 pick. Send the No. 4 overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft to your former boss (Bears owner Virginia Halas McCaskey), former colleague in Kansas City (Bears GM Ryan Poles) and former defensive coordinator with the Colts (Bears coach Matt Eberflus). Send them another pick or two if necessary. If you must, send them cornerback Kenny Moore, an Eberflus favorite, though it would hurt to see him leave. Hell, send ‘em linebacker Shaquille Leonard. We saw this season, when the Colts defense was most definitely not the problem, how replaceable he is.
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Identify the best quarterback in the draft – most likely Bryce Young of Alabama or C.J. Stroud of Ohio State – and get him. Enough is enough. Put on your big-boy pants and draft a quarterback.
Look out the window, Chris. See the groundhog? See his shadow?
It’s been a long, cold winter.
Don’t be afraid of a little heat.
Colts GM Chris Ballard: 'I failed'
This is why we like Chris Ballard so much around here and want him to be part of the Colts’ solution. Impossible not to respect a guy for walking into the news conference Tuesday at the Colts complex on 56th Street, tossing a grim look at the largest such media gathering in years, asking how we’re doing, then sitting down and laying himself bare.
"I failed," he said, literally the next two words out of his mouth. "I’m not going to sit up here and make excuses. Failed a lot of people. Highly disappointed about where we’re at, where the season went."
He kept going.
"Ultimately it falls on my shoulders," he said. "I won’t walk away from that. I won’t run from it."
And kept going.
"Can’t avoid it," he said. "Can’t go over it, can’t go under it. Got to go through it – it’s the only way to grow."
And kept going.
"The criticism is warranted," he said. "The criticism regarding my job and what I’ve done is warranted, but I’ve not lost any confidence in what we can build here."
That’s Ballard, to the core. Self-aware, with self-belief that borders on a charming form of cockiness. Since arriving six years ago, Ballard’s self-doubt has come out in only one area, but this is the area, drafting a quarterback – a franchise guy, not a fourth-round flyer on Jacob Eason in 2020 or that sixth-round Hail Mary on Sam Ehlinger in 2021.
Ballard knows, everyone knows, how hard it is to get this position right. Ultimately, a quarterback’s success will come down to a handful of things you can’t see on tape, like mental toughness. Who knew Brock Purdy, the last player taken in the 2022 NFL Draft, would have so much more than Zach Wilson, drafted second overall in 2021?
Also: Who’s coaching him? Trevor Lawrence, the No. 1 overall pick in 2021, was a disappointment until the Jaguars fired that fool Urban Meyer and hired a true QB whisperer in Doug Pederson. Now Lawrence is The Guy, and the Jaguars are positioned to run the AFC South for the foreseeable future.
Galling, isn’t it? The Colts used to run the AFC South thanks to Peyton Manning and Andrew Luck, but Jacksonville has always been this division’s sleeping giant, with the ability to offer free agents all the sun and beaches they want, and none of the state sales tax they don’t want. Now the Jaguars can offer a coach with a Super Bowl ring, and a franchise quarterback who just turned 23. Jacksonville isn’t going anywhere.
So the Colts have to get moving, and it starts behind center. Since his introductory press conference in January 2017, Ballard has downplayed the importance of the quarterback, saying “no one player is bigger than the team.” He seems to have been serious, if mistaken. A franchise quarterback is not only bigger than the team; as we’ve seen around here, it is the team.
Ballard has a knack for finding talent, trading for DeForest Buckner and drafting Darius Leonard from South Carolina State and acquiring Kenny Moore off waivers from New England, but he has a blind spot at quarterback. Or maybe it’s a fear, like some people fear spiders. You know, arachnophobia?
Quarterback-nophobia.
Colts need a QB. Chris Ballard, you are on the clock
Let’s address some other positions, because how Ballard feels about those spots will inform what he does at quarterback. For starters, he thinks rookie Bernhard Raimann has a future at left tackle. If he’s right, that’s good for the obvious reason – the Colts have a left tackle – and because it would be one less crucial position to address this offseason.
Ballard acknowledged, in so many words, that Michael Pittman Jr. is not a No. 1 receiver. Said he loves the guy, but made it clear a pure No. 1 receiver – a threat to score at all times – is rare, and the Colts don’t have one. So that’s good, too, because it means he’ll stop telling us to shaddup about the Colts’ WR room. Anyway, receivers are everywhere in the draft. Second round, third, fourth. Just find one.
Ballard also says interim coach Jeff Saturday is a serious candidate for the permanent position, and while I don’t believe that’s his preference, Ballard said Jim Irsay will make that decision, as he has made others.
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But when someone asked Ballard about finding a coach and building a staff around the development of a young quarterback – leaving unsaid that, you know, you better have a young quarterback next year – Ballard fell back on his quarterback-nophobia. He said some things that didn’t matter, but caught my ear when he said this:
"We know there’s the elite of the elite," he said, referring to quarterbacks. "When you’ve got one of the elite of the elite, it just feels different. But you’ve got to able to win with average to above-average quarterback play."
Average to above-average quarterback play? Did he just threaten us with Derek Carr?
Finally, toward the end of the news conference Tuesday, someone asked Ballard: Any thoughts on the 2023 NFL Draft’s quarterback class?
"Oh God," Ballard said, then started laughing. Tension long gone, news conference almost over, reporters are laughing too. Now Ballard is letting go and just cackling until the room returns to order.
"No, zero,” he said. “I haven’t done anything."
He was joking, I think, but you never know. The draft is April 27, which gives Chris Ballard 3½ months to work through his fears and find this franchise a quarterback. Chris Ballard, you are on on the clock.
Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter at @GreggDoyelStar or at www.facebook.com/greggdoyelstar.