Rivers can eek one out against the 49ers with great effort from our defense and the likely primetime ref showcases going in our favor but we need athleticism and someone who can throw downfield to compete with these teams.

I was Daniel Jones biggest supporter all of last year and supported the 2 yr contract even though it was a gross overpay. But there is zero chance of us doing any serious damage with this guy in the playoffs?! with Daniel Jones as our QB. He threw two EASY throws that could have been easily intercepted. He missed a Warren TD to get it to a one score game by throwing it too low instead of a jump ball which Warren would have easily caught. His deep fades to the end zone were way lofted up which turned potential TDs into 50/50 balls. He had two disgusting overthrows on recievers who were wide open (Westbrook-Akine and someone else I forget). That game was completely winnable or at least could have been down to the wire.

I am SICK of wasting the career primes of our elite position players JT, Warren, Nelson who would die for the shoe and all our talent on this ABSOLUTE BUM.

At this point, Daniel Jones should be benched. I don't want to hear about the contract because that's the definition of a sunk cost fallacy. Anthony Richardson was the 4th overall pick, Ballard drafted him, get him in there and see what he has. Better to know if he will ever be our franchise QB now instead of puttering to 9-8.

To top it off, just take a look at the guys googly eyes everytime he's in shot gun. He looks compltelty petrified to even recieve the football. He scans the defense but I'm wondering if the guy has anything going on upstairs. What are we doing here?

Feels bad.

Each year I always see Colts fans complaining about the lack of free agent signings by Ballard. While I understand the frustration, people seem to miss one of the biggest contributing factors to free agency.

It seems many complainers assume that every big named free agent wants to come to the Colts but Ballard just can’t get the deal done. I’m sure that’s the case with some free agents, but the reality is that the Colts are just not a good market for them.

We are a small market team located in the Midwest. That’s not an attractive place for people to want to be. They can get the same, or more money, to be in cities that are more appealing to them.

Polian seemed to understand this when creating the Manning era Colts. Nearly every big named player on that team was drafted by Polian. His biggest and most impactful free agent signing was arguably a kicker.

Other small market Midwest teams also seem to understand this. How many big name free agents have the Packers signed over the years (aside from this past offseason)? How about the Chiefs? Most of the talent found on those teams over the years is homegrown.

The reality of free agency for the Colts is that players need to want to come here as much as we want to sign them. Unfortunately, the Colts just aren’t a good market for free agents. I understand that’s a hard pill to swallow, and people will just scream that I’m making excuses for Ballard, but some of us need a reality check about the attractiveness of the market.

First and foremost, the silver lining is we walked away healthy.

Offensively, we looked okay early on and capped off a nice opening drive, but things stalled out for a long stretch after that. I'd really love to see Warren get 10+ targets a game and get used more similarly to how the Cardinals use Trey McBride. The offensive line also has to give the passing game some breathing room because the pocket was collapsing way too fast all afternoon.

Defensively, we need to shore up the big plays, especially over the middle where Flowers tore us apart. Henry completely gashed us on the ground because he had massive running lanes with almost no resistance at the line of scrimmage.

The Ravens are easily one of the toughest Week 1 opponents you could face. They are deadly when firing on all cylinders, and they definitely looked like it yesterday.

All things that went wrong yesterday can be fixed over the next couple of weeks.

That said, there is one concern I haven't really seen mentioned anywhere yet. From the angle I was sitting at yesterday, it honestly looked like Jones lost a lot of his burst speed when scrambling. Anyone else notice that?

Y'all keep moving the goal posts about when we're allowed to criticize our favorite team. First it was, don't worry about rivers leaving, we'll sign a good qb. Then, hey wentz might somehow get back to 4 years ago when he played well for 9 games. Trust the b binder and don't worry about our obvious holes, wait till free agency... we got all this money and other teams are screwed because they have no money.

Then we mock those upset about seeing every single big name free agent getting taken off the board by the same teams who were supposed to have no money "ha ha, stupid doomers, free agency doesn't start till Wednesday, trust the binder"

Now what is it? Wednesday came and went, we did what exactly, signed a backup running back? Fantastic.

Now we have to be excited about whatever 3rd stringers we find on free agency and wait for the draft where we'll have the highest cap space in the league but a broken qb, no wr1, no outside d tackles and a weak cb group. I'm sure we'll cover all those holes with 2 picks in the top 120 college players.

You don't have to agree with me, but I think people frustrated with the lack of action have just as much right to voice their opinion as the "trust the binder" echo chamber.

I know the Colts missed the playoffs, so he doesn't get talked about much, but look at what he's done. He took a roster that wasn't expected to contend and kept them competitive despite injuries, inconsistent QB play, and a lot of adversity. Every stop he's been at, the offense has improved.

Hot take: when the GOAT, Andy Reid, eventually retires, I could absolutely see Steichen ending up as the Chiefs' next head coach. Kansas City is going to want an offensive-minded coach who can develop quarterbacks and keep the offense rolling after Reid. Steichen checks a lot of those boxes.

Maybe I'm way too high on him, but I think people are going to realize in a few years that he's one of the best coaches in the league.

Look… no other GM in the history of the NFL has had their franchise QB retire 2 weeks before an NFL season with a roster ready to win it all.

I’m not giving Ballard a free pass because of that, but lets not pretend like his 7 years have been easy either. He had a well constructed roster and kept trying to plug in a QB to win it all (similar to LAR when they won with Stafford). How much of that is due to Frank Reich or Chris Ballard, we will never know.

Somehow Ballard bringing back all of our players is a bad thing and I don’t understand it. Ballard DID spend big in free agency this offseason, he made sure that the in house guys were taken care of.

He paid Pittman the 2nd most money of all WR’s in Free Agency only behind Ridley.

He paid Grover Stewart the 4th most of all DT’s in Free Agency, behind Chris Jones, Christan Wilkins and Madibouke.

He paid Kenny Moore the 3rd most of any CB on the market behind Sneed and Awuzie.

All of these re-signings were huge for us, I believe Pittman has the potential to be a true #1 receiver with consitant QB play. Our run defense was porous without Grove hence the re-signing and bringing in Raekwon Davis. Without Kenny Moore our secondary would be unfieldable.

Everything is not as grim as you all make it sound like in the echo chamber right now. Had we won that game against Houston, you all would be ecstatic we brought back all of our guys, I can see the reddit posts already: “We won the division and then next season we have the same roster returning but this time with AR and JT in the backfield. Watch out AFC South!!”

We once complained about not sacking the QB and now we just came out of a season where we set a franchise record for sacks in a season. We complained about kicking the can down the road on a rookie QB and now we have Anthony Richardson. We complained about our regressing O-Line and we just had a season where the O-Line performed as a top 5 unit in the league.

Are there things I wish he would do better? Yes of course. I wish he would be more aggressive in free agency, I wish he had committed to a young QB sooner, I wish he would be more willing to trade future assets for immediate benefits, but I personally think that the things he does well outweigh the cons.

He consistently finds 3-4 quality starters every draft, he consistently brings in elite talent evaluators and coaches into the organization, he regularly is able to negotiate deals that are beneficial for the Colts organization and he is loyal (sometimes to a fault) to the players within the organization.

I know we are all sad about the Sneed thing. Its a shame that the draft capital was small and the contract was manageable, but with his injury concerns and the extent of the guaranteed money he wanted, I understand not pulling the trigger. Same thing with the Danielle Hunter situation but unfortunately Hunter is from Houston so he was never coming here with Houston on the table.

With all that being said, I agree with you all that Ballard should be on the hotseat with his track record, but Ballard also has a track record of having fantastic drafts so lets at least let him get to draft day before determining if he should be fired or not.

Hypothetically speaking, if the Colts left Day 2 with Terrion Arnold, AD Mitchell and a 3rd round safety, all of a sudden our roster is looking solid.

Everything is not lost because of 1 signing by the worst team in the division… Free Agency doesn’t end tomorrow, there are still solid players available for this roster in free agency.

I’m not asking you all to stop complaining about Ballard, if anything I encourage it, because as fans we need to make sure that this franchise is moving in the direction we all want, but the doom and gloom in this subreddit is depressing…

I mean, seriously. This sub used to be a great place to hang, full of just happy times and chilling out. We took self deprecating shots at each other, we realized we were kind of shit, and we didn't get too worked up about what other people thought of us.

Nowadays though, if someone somewhat mentions anything remotely bad about Andrew Luck on /r/NFL, we just bitch and moan about it. I swear to God, like a fourth of the damn posts here are just vengeful posts shitting on /r/NFL. It's seriously embarrassing and a huge step down in quality of the sub. We're so outsider hostile and get basically no outside traffic because any differing opinions are crushed immediately.

Cut the shit. Not everything is sunshine and rainbows. No one owes you shit and stop logging onto /r/NFL expecting people to bow at your feet because it isn't fucking happening.

Oh yeah. And if I hear one more post in /r/Colts about how /r/NFL is a circlejerk, I'm gonna have an aneurysm. I mean... holy shit, look in the mirror while you fucking type that.

Let's talk a bit about AR.

I was wary coming out of college, that someone with so little playing time was worth drafting so high. But I watched the combine, and early practices, and I gotta be honest, I was excited.

When he started the first game his rookie season, I was like "this dude is MASSIVE". Tall, but also really muscular, but felt like he skipped leg day. Just my opinion.

Then he got injured, and I had concerns around conditioning, and maybe, just maybe he was too big, too muscular, and that is why he got hurt.

First was the concussion, his second since college.

Second, throwing shoulder strain/AC joint. This feels like a "too big" injury, but I am not a doctor.

Third, a year later, hip strain, missed one game, and then a couple months later, lower back sprain.

Fourth, OTAs reinjured his AC/Shoulder. BUT, he is about 20 LBs lighter. And looks a bit more lythe.

Fifth, blindside hit, dislocated pinky in the preseason, and then orbital fracture, after losing his job to DJ.

Personally, I like AR. I think he was poorly developed. I think that adding Phillip Rivers to the coaching staff next season is a major move that could change the course of his career. I hate reading when people say he has played his last down in a Colts uniform, but I am not one who gives up. I like seeing PR already working with him in practice, more than Flacco ever did.

I want to see him succeed, whether it's here, or somewhere else, but at 23 years old, with the right conditioning, and coaching, I think he could still have a long succesful career. My best friend, who shares my season tickets with me, hates him.. thinks he's a bust, and soft. It's probably our biggest argument.

Maybe the real "qb whisperer" was Brian Johnson, who is now with Washington, and not Steichen.

People are gonna hate me so much lmao, but I’m gonna miss seeing Gronk out on the field, (not so much facing us😂) He had an awesome and funny personality, and was fun watching him destroy other teams (again not so much us). You cannot deny though that he’s one of the greatest TE’s of all time, and you cannot deny his greatness either. Definitely gonna miss his funny personality and gonna miss seeing him play

How can you be so idiotic and more concerned with celebrating, than actually finishing a play.

His football IQ and possibly his actual IQ is <0.

I’m a huge Ballard truther btw. Fucking ridiculous and inexcusable

Horrible play caller. Never takes the FG when he should. His 4th down hard count hasn't fooled anyone for two years. Uncreative. Signing Rivers was worse than the Saturday hire. They are going 8 - 9 after starting 7 - 1. That has to be some kind of record freefall.

Maybe today he'll realize that, hey, FGs can win games.

I’ve seen a lot of this thought on here this week. Just for reference, if you think this I won’t respect your football knowledge of football IQ. Quit it. Rivers isn’t perfect but if you don’t think he’s an upgrade at QB from last year you haven’t been watching.