Chris Ballard Might Finally Be Out as Colts' GM, Adam Schefter Says Change Likely to Come Within Colts' Organization

Bad season Colts. The embarrassing moments outweighed the cool ones. Finished 8-9 and 2nd place in the AFC South in true Colts fashion. They managed to go 18 weeks without answering a single question about whether or not Anthony Richardson is capable of being their long-term solution at quarterback. At times he looked awesome. At times he looked completely incompetent. Some fans still believe in him, and are convinced that in the right system he would be prime Cam Newton. Others sold all their Anthony Richardson stock the minute he checked out of the game mid-drive. But even if Richardson does have all the tools both mentally & talent-wise, nobody can tell you they're confident his body will ever be able to hold up for more than a handful of weeks at a time. The only question Colts fans fully agree on the answer to is, "Is Chris Ballard a good GM?"

No. No he is not.

A lot of fans, myself included, don't necessarily think Shane Steichen is a good head coach either. I certainly don't think Gus Bradley is a good defensive coordinator. At this point there's nothing I'd rather see Irsay do more than blow the whole thing up and move forward with an entirely new front office + coaching staff. Give a brand new regime a chance to see if they can make it work with Anthony Richardson leading the offense. If they can't, then let them try to build something from scratch. 

However, this morning on Sunday NFL Countdown, Adam Schefter reported some not especially inspiring Colts related news. 

I'm not going to pretend I'm super well-versed on Ed Dodds credentials as a GM. All I know is that he's a part of the Colts current front office, which makes my immediate reaction negative. But by all accounts he's a legitimate GM candidate. Sports Illustrated's Albert Beer has this to say about Dodds.

SI - Dodds has long been one of the NFL’s most respected evaluators, as an integral part of the Seahawks’ Legion of Boom build, and Indy GM Chris Ballard’s right-hand man over the last seven years. He was a finalist for the Panthers job last year and also interviewed for openings with the Chargers and Raiders. Indy’s uneven 2024 could stall his candidacy a bit. But teams that are looking to put a scout’s scout into the GM chair will be attracted to this football lifer.

I'm a little confused as to how teams could have watched the Colts for the last 7 years thought, "We really need to get someone from that group."

It's one of those things where you see someone who has interviewed for all these different teams, so you think he must be a hot candidate with something to offer. But at the same time, nobody has hired him. So maybe there's a reason nobody has hired him. Regardless, there's certainly nothing exciting about the Colts making a continuity hire when the team has been constantly shitty for the last 7 years.

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People in favor of Dodds as the next Colts' GM say that he would be a far more aggressive GM than Ballard. That Dodds and Ballard butted heads a lot, and Ballard was only holding him back. If Dodds were promoted to GM and given the keys to the organization, he wouldn't be afraid to spend money and make moves to shake up the roster. Maybe a person within the organization who's been closely watching this team knows best in regards to which pieces are solid, and who needs to go. 

But firing Chris Ballard and promoting Ed Dodds from within would be the most Colts move the Colts could possibly make. He wouldn't be a terrible choice. He's a qualified candidate. He's far from a hopeless hire. But he's the opposite of a sexy hire. He's definitely not Peyton Manning. He does nothing to get the juices flowing. It's just the most vanilla thing the Colts could do right now. If I know the Colts, they'll probably end up going with Dodds. They'll decide to keep Shane Steichen, but try to meet the fans halfway by firing Gus Bradley. If all goes perfectly, maybe the Colts will win 10 games and lose a close game in the Wild Card round next year. 

I had really convinced myself the Irsay was going to blow the whole thing up. I've always had more faith in Jim Irsay than I probably should. But I really thought he would have been embarrassed enough, and pissed-off about the Colts' season to the point that he'd finally pull the trigger and fire everybody. Maybe he still will. Maybe Adam Schefter is way off base on his report. But the Colts firing Chris Ballard only to promote someone from within just fits the Colts script too perfectly for me to expect anything else.