For a sputtering Indianapolis Colts team, the Washington Commanders have shown what’s possible in just one calendar year.
As NFL Network’s Peter Schrager noted, in the last 12 months the Commanders have hired a new general manager, a new head coach, new offensive, defensive, and special teams coordinators, and drafted quarterback Jayden Daniels with the second overall pick.
The results of this massive change have been wildly successful.
Washington would win 12 games during the regular season, their most since 1991. They made the playoffs for the first time since 2020–when they were 7-9–and for just the second time in nine years. Washington has also reached the NFC Championship Game for the first time since 1991 as well.
The quick turnaround gives hope to all fan bases of struggling teams, and perhaps even those organizations, that if the right buttons are pushed, a rebuild doesn’t have to be a multi-year endeavor.
However, what we are seeing from Washington also shouldn’t be the rule or expectation moving forward for teams when sweeping changes are made.
While the Commanders have shown what’s possible, this isn’t exactly normal either–I mean, there isn’t a Jayden Daniels in every draft.
A lot had to go right in a short timeframe to get to this point.
For the Colts, owner Jim Irsay is again keeping the status quo, bringing back general manager Chris Ballard for his ninth season with the team. During Ballard’s tenure, the Colts have just two playoff appearances–and haven’t been since 2020–one playoff win, and no AFC South titles.
Change doesn’t always mean that things are going to improve–again, what Washington is doing is an outlier situation compared to the rest of NFL history. But doing the same thing over and over again and expecting things to work out differently is a broken thought process as well.
From a GM standpoint, changes won’t be made by the Colts this season. But how Ballard operates in 2025 does have to change drastically.
From the sounds of it, he has at least recognized that, calling his construction of the Colts’ 2024 roster, where he ran it back with a team from 2023 that missed the playoffs, a “mistake.”
What this team needs, and Ballard admitted as much, is more competition throughout the roster to avoid complacency and hopefully spark some growth.
With there being a number of positions on this roster that the Colts could justify adding to in an effort to bolster the competition, diving into free agency this offseason–and that doesn’t mean signing every high-priced option–will be a necessity.
When asked specifically about his intentions in free agency this offseason, Ballard didn’t go into specifics and, admittedly, doing so wouldn’t have accomplished anything other than him backing himself into a corner.
The tone of Ballard’s press conference sounded like one where he recognized the previous roster building errors that were made and was going to take a different approach to fix them.
However, as we enter Year 9 of the Ballard-era, words don’t mean nearly as much at this point. It’s all about action.
While I’m going to guess no one is expecting a big offseason from the Colts to put them on the Commanders’ trajectory in 2025, they can’t keep doing the same thing either. And if the personnel is going to remain the same, the approach and philosophies have to differ somewhat significantly moving forward.