Chris Ballard: A year-by-year look and how he’s one of the NFL’s best

Colts GM Chris Ballard is one of the best General Managers in the NFL. Let’s assess his first three years with the team.

Out with the old and in with the new. After years of underperforming draft picks and free-agent busts, Jim Irsay decided it was time to get better. So, in January 2017, the Colts hired Chris Ballard to become the new general manager, replacing former GM Ryan Grigson.

Ballard has quickly turned the focus of the team around. Grigson was a “think second” individual, often spending big in free agency on players that deserved only half of what he was paying them. Grigson was a win-now manager, or at least, it seemed that way after countless drafts flew by without a hint of any production.

Grigson’s big payday struck a match under his chair, and after two 8-8 seasons in 2015 and 2016, his chair burnt right from under him. Ballard’s approach was much different. He believed in culture, a culture that once built would attract big names to the small market Indianapolis franchise.

His main attack point was through the draft; he wanted to build it from the beginning with players he knew bought into what he believed in. The right players would slide seamlessly into the Colts Culture and bring young production for the years to come.

To truly assess Ballard’s three years as general manager, we will take into account three different categories:

1.      Team success for that year

2.       The draft/free agents retained and how they’ve fared so far

3.       How this year built his Colts Culture

Each season will be graded on a scale of 1-10 and will be a factor in Ballard’s overall score out of 10 that will be determined from this.