Indianapolis Colts general manager Chris Ballard has been given every possible chance to turn the team around. But, a decade into his tenure at the helm, he has little to show for his time.
The Colts have just one playoff win since 2018 in just two postseason appearances, none since 2020. Indy has been close more than once, a single win away on several occasions, but haven’t been able to get over the hump. The franchise is currently enduring its longest playoff drought in over 30 years.
Ballard, as the man responsible for creating a competitive product on the field, has received plenty of flack for his underwhelming achievements in such a large amount of time. A measly 70-78-1 record has fans clamoring for his exit.
The frustration and desire for change after so much mediocrity and inability to break through are valid. But at the same time, the Colts are in a messy and precarious position right now, a mess that Ballard made himself. So, he should be the one to clean it up.
It’s a weird paradox—Ballard has long overstayed his welcome, yet is the best option to lead the Colts out of the mud.
Clearly, the resume for Ballard over the past 10 years is unimpressive. A below average overall record, little playoff relevance and no division titles. There are multiple reasons for why the Colts haven’t been competitive and Ballard is responsible for several of the big ones. Mainly, the quarterback position.
Since Andrew Luck retired before the 2019 season, the Colts have started 12 different quarterbacks under center. Many were meant to be short-term bandages—Matt Ryan, Jacoby Brissett, Philip Rivers (both times). Others, such as Sam Ehlinger and Riley Leonard, were just developmental guys taking advantage of a lost season to get some valuable snaps under their belts.
What Ballard failed to do was find a quarterback for the future, someone who can be the guy and give the offense some continuity. Anthony Richardson Sr., Ballard’s selection fourth overall in the 2023 NFL Draft, hasn’t worked out due to multiple injuries and inconsistent play when he was healthy. The sides appear to be headed for a possible divorce this offseason.
It wasn’t until Daniel Jones arrived in 2025 that Ballard had given Indianapolis something they had been missing from the quarterback position since Luck’s exit—a potential multiyear starter.
Jones and the Colts offense started the season at an electrifying pace. The 28-year-old was playing some of the best football of his career. Jonathan Taylor was an early MVP frontrunner. Nobody could touch the Indy offensive line as the team jumped out to an 8-2 start.
When Jones’ season ended prematurely in Jacksonville as he tore his Achilles, a large part of Indy’s momentum died too. Already riding a three-game losing streak after the bye, Indianapolis would go on to lose its last four games, going from 8-2 to 8-9 to wrap up the regular season.
It became clear that due to their struggles in his absence, the Colts had found a match. Jones worked in head coach Shane Steichen’s offense. Despite his injury, both sides are reportedly interested in an extension this offseason.
But Jones’ absence proved something else, too: the rest of the roster was not properly constructed to handle the level of adversity that comes with losing your breakout passer.
The secondary, mangled by injuries as the season went on, proved to be extremely weak without perimeter starters Charvarius Ward and Sauce Gardner available. The defensive line, which played most of the second half of the season without their leader in DeForest Buckner, couldn’t create pressure at all. Even the rest of the quarterback room was in injury shambles with Richardson spending the majority of the year on injured reserve, prompting the late-season addition of Rivers.
Ballard found a quarterback and built a strong starting lineup around him. He was willing to break out of his draft-first mentality, spent some money in free agency and was aggressive at the trade deadline, too. That’s a good thing.
But the team proved substandard once the injuries began to really set in. The offense, once playing at a historically efficient pace, struggled to move the ball. A defense which used to play together as a cohesive unit lost its ability to execute when it mattered. It was the result of improper back-end roster construction to better prepare the team; more talented depth was needed.
For Ballard, this is correctable. He did just about everything right last offseason to create the competition needed to have a sufficiently talented 53-man roster and practice squad. But again, like late on, injuries got involved.
Perhaps rookies like cornerback Justin Walley and safety/linebacker hybrid Hunter Wohler could’ve played roles in 2025 had injuries not robbed them of the season back in August. Maybe a restructured contract for post-torn Achilles Samson Ebukam ($10.4 million cap hit) could’ve opened up some more cap space to address other holes.
It appears that Ballard, almost certainly on his last legs with his contract expiring after 2026, will attempt a similar strategy to 2024 and run it back with the current core. However, that plan led to another late-season implosion and another missed chance to make the playoffs, so why would Ballard be trusted to try it again?
With just a year left on his contract, the Colts seem content to move on from Ballard should he not reach expectations again next season. That’s because finding a new general manager is easier said than done.
Firing Ballard means hiring a replacement. Finding a candidate who’s both qualified and willing to take over a team that appears neither in a rebuild nor a contender, is full of large contracts handed out by Ballard to his core guys and without a first-round pick the next two years. Given Indy has been so average for so long, a new leader would be faced with a dilemma—blow it up and start over or go for it all right away. Little room for error.
So, getting rid of Ballard after such a long time sitting in the middle of the pack would only make it harder on his successor to improve the product. Forcing him to take over the mess Ballard would be leaving behind would be a disadvantage right from the start.
Fans want him out. But who’s going to do a better job in his place?
Despite all his shortcomings and lack of results, Ballard is the best short-term front office leader. He made his bed, now he must sleep in it.
