A trade between a team in the AFC West and another in the NFC West would not seem to have much bearing on the fortunes of the Indianapolis Colts. And in all likelihood, the fact that Kansas City is trading cornerback Trent McDuffie to the Los Angeles Rams won’t alter the fortunes of Indy at all. But it does say something about the team, and more pointedly, the man in charge of running things.
Rams general manager Les Snead is sending four picks to Kansas City to acquire the two-time All-Pro. The Chiefs are getting the second of L.A.’s two first-round picks this year – number 29 overall. They will also get a fifth and sixth-rounder this year and the Rams’ third-round pick in 2027.
McDuffie is entering his fifth year. The Chiefs exercised their fifth-year option, and therefore, he is under contract through 2026 at approximately 13 million dollars. The Rams are expected to work out a new deal with the University of Washington star, which will keep him in LA for several years to come.
How the Rams' Trent McDuffie trade affects the Indianapolis Colts
As mentioned, this has no direct bearing on Indianapolis. But it does not shed a positive light on the deal Colts’ GM Chris Ballard made at last season’s trade deadline for New York Jets star Sauce Gardner.
Ballard traded first-round picks in 2026 and 2027 to get hold of Gardner. He also threw former second-round pick AD Mitchell into the trade.
Fans won’t really know whether this was a positive or negative move for Indy until Gardner gets on the field. He was hurt for most of his time with the Colts last year. But they can already conclude that even if Gardner performs well, the deal was a bad one.
If we cancel out the two 2026 first-round picks (which are not even close to being equal – more on that in a moment), then we are left with this: Ballard gave up an additional first-round pick and a very talented, if unreliable, young receiver in the deal he made. Rams’ GM Snead gave up picks in the third, fifth, and sixth rounds.
A clear advantage for the Rams’ GM.
Of course, this all presumes that Gardner and McDuffie are roughly equivalent players.
By almost every objective measure, they are almost identical. They have played almost the same number of games and have the exact same number of interceptions. McDuffie has proven to be a more versatile defender, making more tackles and blitzing more successfully. Gardner may be a better pure cover corner.
But it is very hard to make the case that one is substantially better than the other. Still, Ballard gave up a lot more to get his CB1. And that’s never a good thing.
For this season, the Colts have given up the 16th pick in the draft compared to the Rams, who traded the 29th. That’s a significant gap. According to the commonly used draft pick value chart, there is a 360-point difference in those two first-round picks.
360 points equate to the 54th pick in the draft. Therefore, simply based on value, Ballard also effectively gave up an extra second-round pick in the Gardner trade.
You can’t blame Ballard for that. When he made his trade, he was banking on Gradner helping lead the Colts into the playoffs. And that was a reasonable expectation before injuries derailed Indy’s season.
However, even if we give Ballard a pass on the first-round draft positioning this year, here’s why Les Snead is a more effective GM than Chris Ballard. And why the Rams have won a Super Bowl this decade and come close several other times, while the Colts have managed a single playoff win under Ballard, which came at the end of the 2018 season.
The Rams still have a first-round pick. It is number 13 overall. They got it on draft day last year when they swapped their 2025 first-round pick to Atlanta as part of a major, multi-pick deal. For a while, it looked as if Snead might have made a poor decision. The Falcons got James Pearce with the Rams’ pick, and he put up 10.5 sacks as a rookie.
But now, Pearce’s future is in doubt due to some ugly legal charges, and the Rams are sitting pretty. They barely missed the Super Bowl this year and still have a very high pick in the draft.
And now they have addressed a major defensive issue as they attempt to overtake the defending champion Seattle Seahawks. Of course, we don’t know how things will play out. Perhaps Sauce Gardner will carry the Colts into the playoffs this year. We only know that the Los Angeles Rams operated out of a strong position that allowed them to acquire a great cornerback without sacrificing their future.
And the Indianapolis Colts essentially did the exact opposite.