{"id":519122,"date":"2025-11-12T06:10:13","date_gmt":"2025-11-12T06:10:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/519122\/"},"modified":"2025-11-12T06:10:13","modified_gmt":"2025-11-12T06:10:13","slug":"how-deal-impacts-chris-ballards-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/519122\/","title":{"rendered":"How deal impacts Chris Ballard’s future"},"content":{"rendered":"

What might the Sauce Gardner trade mean for Chris Ballard and his future with the Colts?<\/p>\n

The Indianapolis Colts <\/a>trading for All-Pro cornerback Sauce Gardner <\/a>may hint at what might be next for GM Chris Ballard.<\/p>\n

As ESPN’s Stephen Holder<\/a> noted in a recent article of his, Ballard getting the go-ahead to make this deal, which included the Colts<\/a> trading away two first-round draft picks, doesn’t exactly sound like a scenario that would unfold for a GM who has an uncertain future.<\/p>\n

Now, coming into the season, it was presumably a make-or-break year for Ballard, whose teams had a below. 500 record<\/a> under his guidance from 2017 through 2024. The Colts also haven’t made the playoffs since 2020.<\/p>\n

All of that now seems like a distant memory, however.<\/p>\n

Led by Daniel Jones — an offseason addition by Ballard — the Colts have one of the most productive offenses in the NFL. And through 10 games this season, the Colts are 8-2 and sit at the top of the AFC playoff race.<\/p>\n

“There’s a long way to go, but, right now, Ballard — who is signed through 2026 — seems a lot closer to getting a contract extension than being shown the door,” wrote Holder.<\/p>\n

Along with Ballard, the addition of Gardner also seems to be quite telling when it comes to Jones’ future with the Colts<\/a> as well.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"What might the Sauce Gardner trade mean for Chris Ballard and his future with the Colts? The Indianapolis…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":519123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[247,265,825,2005,324,4143,2772,12,388,7,2586,20842,379,2004,392,2381,1702,248,267,246,88,6,35196,245,264,8141,7536,9,266],"class_list":{"0":"post-519122","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-american","9":"tag-american-football","10":"tag-american-football-conference","11":"tag-colts","12":"tag-conference","13":"tag-daniel","14":"tag-daniel-jones","15":"tag-espn","16":"tag-espn-inc","17":"tag-football","18":"tag-gardner","19":"tag-hub","20":"tag-inc","21":"tag-indianapolis","22":"tag-indianapolis-colts","23":"tag-indianapoliscolts","24":"tag-jones","25":"tag-national","26":"tag-national-sports","27":"tag-neutral","28":"tag-news","29":"tag-nfl","30":"tag-nfl-hub","31":"tag-overall","32":"tag-overall-neutral","33":"tag-sauce","34":"tag-sauce-gardner","35":"tag-sports","36":"tag-sports-news"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/115535244926670723","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=519122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/519122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/519123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=519122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=519122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=519122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}