Over the last four years that Chris Ballard has been the general manager of the Indianapolis Colts, fans have grown accustomed to his philosophy and willingness to trade down in order to acquire more picks.
However, that wasn’t the case so much in 2021. Though Ballard did make one trade during the weekend—a sixth-round move with the New Orleans Saints—it was just the second time in his five drafts that he traded down only once. The other time was 2017, his first draft as general manager.
But it wasn’t for a lack of trying. Ballard wanted to move down the draft order badly. The board simply had a different plan.
“I’m not going to lie to y’all, until we made a trade in the sixth (round) – we were itching now,” Ballard told reporters following the draft. “It’s been a long time since I have been a part of a draft where we didn’t trade back sooner.”
In fact, his statement would be correct. This was the latest in the draft Ballard has waited to make a trade. Before that, 2017 held that spot when Ballard moved back in the fourth round.
Because of the way the Colts had their board set up, prospects at the top simply kept falling to them. It made it difficult for Ballard to trade back, especially since they aren’t a team that drafts solely based off of need.
“But sometimes you can’t plan these drafts out, you can’t plan how the board – I mean you can set your board up to fill your needs, but I’m just telling you, you end up taking a player that is not as good as the one you passed up,” Ballard said. “So, we want to always make sure we take it – we take good players even if we have other players at the position. It might be a year before they play but they will get on the field and they will be good players for us.”
Ballard wound up with seven total picks in the draft, the fewest he’s ever had since taking over as general manager. With six total picks currently on the docket in 2022 because of the Carson Wentz trade, it would make sense to expect Ballard to move back earlier next year.
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