Chris Ballard: A year-by-year look and how he’s one of the NFL’s best
2018
Entering 2018, Ballard was getting his franchise QB back from injury and needed to have a career draft to get the right pieces around him. He was committed to the young core he was building and was confident in the team; he returned only 11 starters on offense and defense from 2017.
Despite the youth potential and a Pro Bowl QB, the Colts began the season 1-5 as Andrew Luck struggled to get his feet wet after a year of rehab. At this point in the season, the team ranked 27th in the NFL as Luck led the league in pass attempts but struggled to put together any chunk plays down the field.
His 6.2 yards per attempt ranked last in the NFL and his average throw distance downfield (7.3 yards) was 27th. It was at this point that the offense needed to change. In an interview with NFL Films, rookie offensive guard Quenton Nelson discussed how he met with Coach Reich on the subject of the run game.
“I asked Coach Frank if I could meet with him”, he said. “I just told him, we need to run the football.”
Reich believed in this philosophy and put it out onto the field. The Colts went on a tear after this, winning 9 of their last 10 regular-season games, including wins against Houston, Dallas, and two against Tennessee. The team finished 10-6 and clinched the 6-seed in the AFC playoffs. There, they dominated the Houston Texans in the Wild Card round and fell to the Kansas City Chiefs and their high-powered offense.
The run game was the turning point for the offense to truly flourish in the league and cement Ballard’s main focus: building a powerful offensive line and running the ball. For context, after the team’s 1-5 start, they averaged 83.2 rush yards per game.
In their final 10 games, they nearly doubled that total and ran for 150.6 rush yards per game. Their offensive line allowed only 8 sacks in those final 10 games, in contrast to the 10 allowed in their first 6 games. Marlon Mack led the way as he truly blossomed into a premier back.
The offensive line was a dominant one; Quenton Nelson was one of the best guards in the league in his rookie season. Ryan Kelly and Anthony Castonzo were both Pro-Bowl caliber players and were key pieces in the development of the run game. Altogether, this team wouldn’t have reached the success it would have during the season.
Related Story. Colts Quenton Nelson is NFL's most exciting lineman. light
As good as the run game was, the passing game, led by Andrew Luck, was just as effective after they began their win streak. Luck threw for 39 total touchdowns the entire season to 15 interceptions. Both he and Eric Ebron, who led the NFL with 13 receiving touchdowns, received Pro Bowl honors.
The most surprising factor for the 2018 season was the defense. The team ranked 11th overall in total yards allowed per game (339.4). They allowed the 8th-fewest rushing yards per game and did not allow a 100-yard rusher the entire season.
They allowed the 10th-fewest points with 21.5. Ballard’s trust that his culture will perform during the season clearly showed, as rookie Darius Leonard led the NFL in total tackles and was voted as a First-Team All-Pro. Leonard set the tone for the culture; he played fast and physical until the echo of the whistle.
The 2018 draft was easily Ballard’s best of the three and was one of the best drafts in Colts history. Virtually every player in this draft are either starters on their respective sides of the field or on special teams.
His first two picks, Quenton Nelson and Darius Leonard, are superstars at their positions and are two of the best players at their positions in only their second seasons. Quenton Nelson looks like a surefire Hall of Famer; he’s already made two Pro Bowls and two First-Team All-Pro selections.
Darius Leonard is also looking to be on that path, as well. He made the First-Team All-Pro roster in his rookie season and was a Pro Bowl starter in his second. Braden Smith, drafted one pick after Leonard in the second round, is going to be a career starter on the Colts offensive line and will, without a doubt, appear in a few Pro Bowls in his career.
Ballard’s next two picks, Kemoko Turay and Tyquan Lewis are young players who are flourishing in the team’s system and are now both starters on the Colts defense after two productive seasons. Nyheim Hines is a key feature on offense behind Marlon Mack in the run game; he procures the most on special teams as a returner and is one of the better returners in the NFL.
Indianapolis Colts
These 5 players were all drafted by Ballard back-to-back. There aren’t many times that a GM can produce this amount of starters in one draft, especially not with only his first 5 picks. It was truly a masterpiece of a draft, to say the least.
Ballard’s best picks:
- Quenton Nelson, Guard – 6th pick, 1st round
“Big Q” is a truly special player at his position. Nelson displays unreal power when blocking and might be the most powerful offensive lineman in the NFL, but a vastly underrated quality that he has is the speed to pull outside and block blitzing linebackers or defensive backs. There isn’t an interior lineman that has come through the league in a while, and Nelson will be a premier piece in the development of Ballard’s team to a playoff team again.
- Darius Leonard, Linebacker – 36th pick, 2nd round
Coming out of South Carolina State, Leonard wasn’t regarded as a top-tier linebacker in the draft, however, Ballard trusted what he saw in him. Leonard immediately blossomed into a top-tier linebacker as he led the league in tackles with 163.
He is truly a machine at the position, both blitzing the quarterback, stopping the run, and defending the pass in coverage. He, and Nelson, are locks to be Colts players for life and have a pretty good resume so far to be enshrined among the league’s best.
Career Statistics:
- 2018:
- 163 Total Tackles, 2 INT, 8 PD
- 4 FF, 2 FR, 7.0 SACK
- 15 Games Played, 15 Starts
- 2019:
- 121 Total Tackles, 5 INT, 1 TD, 7 PD
- 2 FF, 5.0 SACK
- 13 Games Played, 13 Starts
- Braden Smith -37th Pick, 2nd Round
Smith came into the league as a guard but shifted to tackle for the Colts. He shifted seamlessly into his position and has been one of the league’s top up-and-coming offensive linemen. Smith was a Day 1 starter on the line in 2018 as he started all but two of the games he played in, along with playing in 75% of all offensive snaps.
In 2019, his status as a starter was a confirmed one; Smith did not miss a snap all season. Smith’s consistency and improvement have also been shown between his rookie and sophomore seasons; he committed 4 penalties (3 holding, 1 false start) in 2018. He greatly improved his technique and only committed 2 in 2019.
- Kemoko Turay, Defensive Line – 52nd Pick, 2nd Round
Turay has been a consistent part of the rotation on the defensive line in his two seasons with the team. In his rookie season, he started 3 of his 14 games played and was a decent factor when on the field.
Turay is going to need time to improve as an interior defensive lineman, but Ballard’s belief that competition and fight amongst position groups is the key to producing a great roster has shown with the amount of playing time that Turay has had so soon in his career. He will need the offseason to rehab from his ankle injury that caused him to only appear in 4 games in 2019, however, Ballard is positive of the growth that he will have moving on in his career.
Career Stats:
- 2018:
- 1 FF, 4.0 SACK, 15 Total Tackles, 13 QBHIT
- 14 Games Played, 3 Starts
- 2019:
- 1FF, 1.5 SACK, 5 Total Tackles, 5 QBHIT
- 4 Games Played, 0 Starts
- Tyquan Lewis, Defensive Line – 64th Pick, 2nd Round
Lewis, similar to Turay, has been a consistent rotational member on the defensive line through his two seasons. Another addition to Ballard’s crop of young players on the line, Lewis has played his part as well as he could have, despite missing 15 of 34 possible games.
He dropped off slightly after a decent rookie season but still played more than half of all defensive snaps in most of the games he appeared in. He is going to need to cement himself as a solid starting lineman for the team after rehabbing this offseason from nagging injuries.
Career Stats:
- 2018:
- 2.0 SACK, 13 Total Tackles, 8 QBHIT
- 8 Games Played, 6 Starts
- 2019:
- 5 Total Tackles, 1 QBHIT
- 6 Games Played, 0 Starts
- Nyheim Hines, Running Back – 104th Pick, 4th Round
Hines was an important factor in the development of the Colts’ dominant run game in his rookie season and he also played a critical role in the passing game, as well. Hines’ ability to both run the ball and catch out of the backfield was something that attracted Ballard to draft a running back in this draft.
Even though he was firm on Marlon Mack as the bell cow back in Indianapolis, one of Ballard’s keys on offense is the use of multiple running backs; Hines was nothing but a gem in 2018. In 2019, he improved even more and added a third facet to his game with the return game. Hines has been effectively used as a 3rd or 4th receiver in most of his games. 2019 was a huge growth year for Hines and he will continue to grow as one of the league’s better all-around backs.
Career Statistics:
- 2018:
- 85 RUSH, 314YD, 2 TD
- 63 REC, 425YD, 2 TD
- 16 Games Played, 4 Starts
- 2019:
- 52 RUSH, 199YD, 2TD
- 44 REC, 320 YD
- 9 Punt Returns, 281YD, 2 TD
- 6 Kick Returns, 123YD
- 16 Games Played, 2 Starts
Ballard’s growth a GM was at an all-time high in 2018. Everything he strived to work for was clicking. He wanted to build an offensive line to protect Andrew Luck; he built one of the best offensive lines in the league.
He wanted a young and competitive roster; he drafted 5 starters in a row and has built an incredible group of young talent. Ballard’s 2018 draft was easily the best in the league for the year. The team started slow, but his culture turned around the team and brought them to the divisional round of the playoffs only one year after a 4-12 season. His only miscue the entire season was not finding a receiver opposite T.Y. Hilton. It’s hard to not give Ballard a perfect score this season, but almost perfect will do.