According to Rotoworld’s Patrick Daugherty, Indianapolis Colts longtime general manager Chris Ballard is ranked as the 21st best overall league-wide in his current role:
21. Chris Ballard, Colts
Chris Ballard has been on the job for nine seasons and two Irsays. Not much seems to be changing. Ballard and Carlie Irsay-Gordon certainly thought something was different last November. Sitting at 7-2, they traded a pair of first-round picks for Sauce Gardner. To say the least, that’s bold when your quarterback is Daniel Jones. To the surprise of very few, it ended up too good to be true. Both players ended the year injured and Indy somehow finished below .500 despite an 8-2 start. Life came at the Colts fast, but the process for finding a genuine franchise player will now be painfully slow. Barring something dramatic, they will not be in position to take a first-round quarterback until 2028. This is not a good enough overall roster to make Jones the next Sam Darnold as an unlikely Super Bowl winner. It’s probably not even good enough to win a resurgent AFC South. In other words, it’s what it has been for most of Ballard’s tenure. Neither star-laden nor swimming in depth and without a franchise QB, the Colts remain in the NFL’s shadow zone.
After a hot start to his initial Colts general manager tenure, winning PFWA Executive of the Year in 2018 following that year’s home run of a Draft Class that saw him land two perennial NFL First-Team All-Pros in the first two rounds, as well as a bookend starting right tackle, the more recent draft results for Indianapolis’ 56-year-old lead football exec have been far less fruitful—although his 2020 Draft Class was also very strong atop.
Now entering ‘Year 10’ on the job, Ballard has just two playoff appearances, one playoff win, and 0 division titles to his Indianapolis general manager resume. Since Ballard arrived in Indianapolis during the 2017 offseason, each of the Colts’ AFC South rivals has won the division at least twice.
Collectively, Ballard has a 70-78-1 record in Indianapolis, and has had losing seasons in 3 of the last 4 years.
If you believe Colts ownership, this will be a ‘make-or-break’ upcoming year for Ballard, as well as potentially head coach Shane Steichen, should Indianapolis suffer another disappointing season short of playoff contention.
While the Colts and Ballard were dealt a shocking hand in 2019, when former franchise quarterback Andrew Luck shockingly retired just weeks before the season started, we’re also going on 8 years removed from that incredibly challenging blow. The Colts have had other opportunities to land potential new franchise quarterbacks, including a seemingly big whiff in retrospect when selecting quarterback Anthony Richardson with the 4th overall pick in the 2023 NFL Draft—who the franchise is in the process of moving on from.
While Ballard proclaimed upon his arrival back in 2017, that it would never be about just one guy, so far it has been, as Indianapolis has continued to suffer a turnstile at the league’s most important position following Luck surprisingly walking away from playing professional football.
It’s come down to their inability to replace him long-term.
That coupled with less productive recent draft classes, and the Colts find themselves in a precarious position, again without a first round pick in 2027, compared to teams with more brighter football futures.
However, it’s probably ‘now or never time’ for Ballard, as if the Colts don’t prove it in 2026, he may not get another ensuing opportunity—if Indianapolis ownership practices what they’ve recently been preaching.