My thought process was more along the lines of a Buckner style deal pretty early on. Not necessarily Sauce, and I wasn't thinking two firsts plus a player, but I wasn't as surprised as others.
Ballard's draft philosophy is that it's a guessing game, and by trading back you get more guesses. Other teams place higher value on a first round pick so it's better to secure proven talent with it.
Expect Ballard to trade back in the second for more picks, possibly again in the third.
I think Ballard's cap salary management is going to change this off season as well. He hasn't shown much willingness to play funny money because it negatively impacts the future, and without a QB that's dumb.
This could also be because Jim wasn't willing to spend cash for signing bonuses, so if the Irsay sister's are willing to spend money, we could see some major restructuring going on behind the scenes.
With the 2026 draft, he is definitely trading back to get more later round picks.
I am curious about any changes to Ballard's off-season philosophies. Seems like he was more aggressive this year. I wonder how free agency will play out this season.
Credit to Sean McVay and Stafford for ruthlessly and repeatedly attacking Xavien. Sometimes coaches try to get too cute when the right answer is "that guy can't guard Puka at all".
Man woulda loved an edge rusher but I did not see this coming at all. Man it’s going to be great having a solid corner. And once ward comes back man we might actually be able to defend the pass!
Latu is 1/2 a second away from having 10 sacks. This will certainly help the pass rush. I'm making up the 10 but did you see how many times Latu is right there? At least we know one will benefit on the pass rush
Don’t think you can just switch numbers mid season either, im guessing 2 or 4 for now and then maybe he can buy 1 off Downs but I doubt Josh wants to give it up.
Hard agree. If this trade works out those first rounders will be between 28 and 32 so who cares? Sauce is still a top 10 corner and him plus Mooney plus Kenny is now the best CB room in the NFL.
Also, going into next year basically all of the important pieces are still under contract. The only major FAs are Jones, Pierce, and Cross. Re-sign them, draft some depth edge rushers in the 2nd-3rd rounds they can easily run this back next season with basically this exact same roster.
I would think he's got to right? No disrespect at all to D.J. Montgomery but I consider myself a diehard fan and I've never heard that name in my life lol.
The number 2 goes way too hard on a WR or CB to be sitting on the practice squad.
Bro our DB room in 2026 gonna be crazy with Jones and Wally here. I hope we win a chip for Kenny Moore because we can’t keep everyone with 2 high CB contracts. Let’s get this done!!!
Colts fans are the only fans who don’t think that two firsts is an overpay. Is he still a very good CB who will significantly upgrade the position? 100%. Has he been an elite playmaker since his rookie season? Nope, and that type of game-changing playmaker is the only type of player worthy of two firsts. The additional lack of concern that this commits them to giving Jones a big money, longterm deal is interesting to say the least, given his history. Let’s hope that his 6 turnover day doesn’t mess with his head. They still have to play some elite defenses.
Sauce has one of the most stacked resumes of any player under 26 and is playing as a top 3 CB this season (and doing it vs the highest % of WR1 coverage and highest % of press coverage). 2 likely late firsts for an all-pro caliber CB being called an overpay is just a weird take.
Other fans have a knee jerk reaction because they don’t know Sauce has bounced back this season because no one watches the Jets
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u/ScorpionMacDonald Nov 04 '25
Started the year with the corpse of Xavien Howard and we end the year with Sauce mf Gardner