{"id":896551,"date":"2026-05-20T17:12:18","date_gmt":"2026-05-20T17:12:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/896551\/"},"modified":"2026-05-20T17:12:18","modified_gmt":"2026-05-20T17:12:18","slug":"where-does-colts-chris-ballard-rank-among-nfl-gms","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/896551\/","title":{"rendered":"Where does Colts Chris Ballard rank among NFL GMs?"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to Rotoworld\u2019s Patrick Daugherty, Indianapolis Colts longtime general manager Chris Ballard is ranked as the 21st best overall league-wide in his current role: <\/a><\/p>\n

21. Chris Ballard, Colts<\/p>\n

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<\/a>. To say the least, that\u2019s bold when your quarterback is Daniel Jones<\/a>. 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<\/a> as an unlikely Super Bowl winner. It\u2019s probably not even good enough to win a resurgent AFC South. In other words, it\u2019s what it has been for most of Ballard\u2019s tenure. Neither star-laden nor swimming in depth and without a franchise QB, the Colts remain in the NFL\u2019s shadow zone.<\/p>\n

After a hot start to his initial Colts general manager tenure, winning PFWA Executive of the Year in 2018 following that year\u2019s 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\u2019 56-year-old lead football exec have been far less fruitful\u2014although his 2020 Draft Class was also very strong atop.<\/p>\n

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Now entering \u2018Year 10\u2019 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\u2019 AFC South rivals has won the division at least twice.<\/p>\n

Collectively, Ballard has a 70-78-1 record in Indianapolis, and has had losing seasons in 3 of the last 4 years.<\/p>\n

If you believe Colts ownership, this will be a \u2018make-or-break\u2019 upcoming year for Ballard, as well as potentially head coach Shane Steichen, should Indianapolis suffer another disappointing season short of playoff contention.<\/p>\n

While the Colts and Ballard were dealt a shocking hand in 2019, when former franchise quarterback Andrew Luck<\/a> shockingly retired just weeks before the season started, we\u2019re 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\u2014who the franchise is in the process of moving on from.<\/p>\n

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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\u2019s most important position following Luck surprisingly walking away from playing professional football.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s come down to their inability to replace him long-term.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

However, it\u2019s probably \u2018now or never time\u2019 for Ballard, as if the Colts don\u2019t prove it in 2026, he may not get another ensuing opportunity\u2014if Indianapolis ownership practices what they\u2019ve recently been preaching.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to Rotoworld\u2019s Patrick Daugherty, Indianapolis Colts longtime general manager Chris Ballard is ranked as the 21st best…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":896552,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[6502,5422,2005,2772,3990,7,932,2004,392,2381,6,1878,7536],"class_list":["post-896551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indianapolis-colts","tag-andrew-luck","tag-chris-ballard","tag-colts","tag-daniel-jones","tag-draft-class","tag-football","tag-indiana","tag-indianapolis","tag-indianapolis-colts","tag-indianapoliscolts","tag-nfl","tag-sam-darnold","tag-sauce-gardner"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116608024129472319","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896551","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=896551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/896551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/896552"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=896551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=896551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=896551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}