The broad consensus in NFL circles was that the firing of Indianapolis Colts general manager Chris Ballard was long overdue. That certainly seems to be the opinion of one of the club’s most famous fans. Discussing the news on his program Monday morning, former Colt and current ESPN megastar Pat McAfee put it very succinctly...
“Whenever you’re an NFL franchise and your teams stinks, the fans demand change.”
The Colts didn’t even really stink under Ballard. They were stuck someplace worse. Perpetual mediocrity. A C- student doing barely enough to get by. As McAfee noted, that simply isn’t good enough for the NFL.
“He never won with the Colts,” McAfee said. And then, even more damning: “And I don’t think that he was doing it in a manner in which you could win.”
The Indianapolis Colts finally begin dismantling a failed leadership team, and Pat McAfee applauds the move
McAfee noted a number of issues that beset the Colts during Ballard tenure as GM. The sudden retirement of Andrew Luck just before the 2019 season obviously threw the franchise into turmoil. But that was more than seven years ago. The GM tried and failed multiple times to find Luck’s successor.
And the transition in ownership from Jim Irsay to his three daughters in 2025 clearly shook the organization. That is when strong leadership from a general manager is essential, but in the eyes of many, Ballard simply was not providing it.
In the end, the second point may be more fundamental to Ballard’s lack of success than any doubts over his ability to evaluate talent. McAfee’s most critical comments came when he addressed the culture established under Ballard over the last decade.
“As GM, I thought his teams were never gonna be able to win.”
He called the culture “soft” and compared it to what we all saw from the reigning Super Bowl champion Seattle Seahawks when they were profiled on Hard Knocks this preseason.
“You watch the Seattle Seahawks’ Hard Knocks … they got a hard culture. They got a team that is accountable to each other.”
By contrast, McAfee pointed out that rumors had been circulating about the Colts for the past few years. That meetings and rehab sessions were routinely missed with little or no consequence. It may be difficult to draw a direct line from that attitude to losses on the football field, but no one who has ever played at the highest levels will tell you that such laxity simply won’t work in the NFL.
By all accounts, Chris Ballard was a nice, decent man. McAfee isn’t the only person with inside info who is saying that today. But it is possible that his forgiving nature got the best of him in trying to construct a winning football franchise.
Whether it involved being too friendly with his players, failing to instill enough discipline, or remaining loyal to players after their on-field effectiveness had receded, whatever buttons Chris Ballard was pushing, they weren’t working.
McAfee saw it a long time ago. Colts fans saw it a long time ago. On Monday, Carlie Irsay-Gordon finally saw it too. Ballard found some gems for the Colts in the NFL draft, and perhaps he will return to scouting with another organization. Or maybe he’ll take time away from the game. McAfee wished him all the best in whatever comes next, and I don’t know any fans who wouldn’t echo those thoughts.
But the harsh reality is that he leaves the franchise in dire need of an overhaul and without a great deal of draft capital for a rebuild. The quarterback situation looks as muddled as ever, and the defense has a lot of aging vets alongside young, unproven talent. There is clearly a lot of work to do for whoever becomes the next general manager.
That GM probably should have been on the job by now. Retaining Ballard after the collapse of 2025 only to fire him six games into the new season was a clear mistake. But now it’s in the past, and fans, including one “very, very, very, very high-paying season-ticket holder" (as McAfee referred to himself) can only hope that something better waits in the future.
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