According to multiple national media members, Indianapolis Colts general manager Chris Ballard has recently been assembling the “The Beatles” (or something to that effect) of a new scouting department.
It started earlier this week with former New York Jets senior director of college scouting Rex Hogan and Seattle Seahawks personnel director Ed Dodds expected to be named as the Colts Co-VP’s of player personnel, but has continued with Indianapolis set to hire ex-Cleveland Browns vice president of player personnel Morocco Brown as their new director of college scouting.
The talent level of the Colts roster has fallen off in recent seasons–especially on defense, and the best way to acquire young talent is through the NFL Draft, which Indianapolis had its fair share of strike outs under the previous front office regime.
That being said, team owner Jim Irsay wanted to improve the ‘scouting infrastructure’ of his franchise when hiring a new general manager, and it appears he’s so far gotten it right with Ballard–who was regarded as having one of the top scouting eyes prior to joining the Colts.
While it doesn’t mean the Colts will bat 1.000 from here on out with every draft selection, it certainly seems to indicate that the team may have acquired an overall better eye for talent going forward.
All three of Hogan, Dodds, and Morocco are highly regarded throughout the industry and along with Ballard, it could have the makings of something of a ‘scouting brain trust’ for the Colts all things considered:
Holy shit. Ballard is assembling the Avengers of scouting. https://t.co/JTvGiLJaJl
— Matt Miller (@nfldraftscout) May 9, 2017
Morocco Brown another great addition to the front office Chris Ballard is putting together in Indy. Smart hire
— Jason La Canfora (@JasonLaCanfora) May 10, 2017
as well as Morocco Brown. tremendous scouting staff he's assembling
— Eric Edholm (@Eric_Edholm) May 10, 2017
One cause for concern could be that while there are a lot of talented scouting personnel members now in the Colts front office, there’s also a lot of egos and opinions to manage under one roof.
That being said, any franchise would rather have an abundance of ‘eyes for talent’ than not enough, and the top scouting personnel working under Ballard such as Hogan, Dobbs, and Brown will presumably all be highly professional–aspiring one day to be promoted to the same position that Ballard currently holds as an NFL team’s general manager while working diligently in the process.
Not to mention, Ballard is already very familiar with each of them–dating back to his days working as a scouting member with the Chicago Bears (sans Dodds, who’s apparently also been close with the Colts general manager).
Next: Report: Colts Expected to Hire Morocco Brown as New Director of College Scouting
After this year’s impressive draft haul and now Ballard building his own band full of scouting ‘rock stars’, things are actually starting to look up for the Colts.
Hear that?
Hopefully, it translates onto the field for this upcoming season and for the foreseeable future because if Ballard’s band is ready to ‘rock’, Colts fans are ready to ‘roll’!