Never known to take major risks during the first tier of NFL free agency, Colts GM Chris Ballard took some significant secondary swings on ‘Day 1.’
Longtime Indianapolis Colts general manager Chris Ballard has been calling the shots for 9 years and counting as the head of the Horseshoe’s football operations, but Monday was the first time that he’s ever made a significant splash on the actual ‘Day 1’ of NFL free agency.
Ballard knows just as the rest of us do, that if he doesn’t get it right this offseason and turn this thing around, that he may not be counting his active years with the Colts much longer.
With an increasingly impatient NFL owner, It’ll presumably be someone else come next offseason deciding how to properly spend team owner Jim Irsay’s dollars in free agency.
With his back against the wall entering the offseason—for what really feels like a ‘make-or-break’ 2025 for the franchise’s top leaders, the embattled GM acknowledged a few weeks ago that he may have to adjust his free agency philosophy to ‘find the right guys.’
As a result, the historically fiscally prudent Ballard just shelled out the big bucks, paying a pair of top free agent defensive backs this cycle: safety Camryn Bynum and cornerback Charvarius Ward a combined $120 million with $61 million of that being guaranteed dollars.
It felt like Ballard spent more in less than 24 hours on Monday for external NFL free agents, than he did throughout his entire lengthy GM tenure with Indianapolis previously.
Ballard had brought in a handful of big named free agents here and there in the past: former Pro Bowl veterans such as Justin Houston and Stephon Gilmore for example respectively, but never on ‘Day 1’—or really even within the first wave of NFL free agency.
Monday marked a stark contrast to his routinely frugal free agency ways for top tier free agents—and hopefully for the better, because the Colts otherwise had more roster holes than early draft picks to realistically fill them this upcoming NFL Draft.
Now, just because Ballard spent a lot of Irsay’s money, doesn’t necessarily mean that the Colts actually won the day by any means.
Time will truly tell whether both Bynum and Ward can live up to those lucrative multi-year contracts and be the difference-makers that Ballard’s braintrust truly believe they can be.
On paper though and based on past production, the new Colts’ DB duo theoretically provides new veteran defensive coordinator Lou Anarumo some much needed ‘horses’ within this revamped Indy secondary—which was overdue for some meaningful upgrades.
Now they just have to show it on the field to reward Ballard’s surprising investment in them—and potentially solidify his continued Colts’ job security in the process.