At his season ending press conference Tuesday morning, Colts GM Chris Ballard began with a blunt assessment of his performance for this year.
“I failed.” Ballard said in his opening statement. This type of honesty was a recurring theme throughout the roughly 40-minute session, as Ballard repeatedly owned up to the shortcomings on the Colts roster that he oversaw. He also indicated that despite the failure of the team this year, he still had faith in his team building philosophy. “I do believe you have to be great up front” Ballard said. “That will be on my grave.” Ballard also signaled that he would be willing to move up in the draft to take a QB if they truly believed that player could help the team. When asked about the teams search for its next head coach, the GM would not get into potential candidates; he instead focused on what he had learned in the previous 2 coaching searches. Ballard did say that Jeff Saturday, who served as interim head coach over the last 8 games of the regular season, would be considered for the position.
Listen to JMV and Zak Keefer from The Athletic breakdown Ballard’s press conference and more below!
