A change in leadership is underway for the Indianapolis Colts, as the franchise announced the firing of general manager Chris Ballard after 10 years in the role. His results over a decade at the helm were modest at best and more accurately described as frustrating and disappointing, given that he was the longest-tenured general manager in NFL history to have a losing record and one or fewer postseason wins. Time ran out following a string of moves that aged poorly and a run of on-field mediocrity.

Late owner Jim Irsay remained committed to Ballard until his death in May 2025, and Carlie Irsay-Gordon put pressure on Ballard upon her rise to leadership, detailing last offseason that the urgency to deliver results has never been higher. That shift in expectations, paired with untimely, poorly executed moves, was Ballard's downfall.

From his role in coaching hires to trades that did not withstand the test of time, failures dotted Ballard's resume by the end of his tenure. The inability to find a long-term answer at quarterback in the wake of Andrew Luck's retirement in 2019 was a prevalent issue across his lengthy run as general manager, too. Underwhelming draft picks did not help his cause, either. All of those decisions compounded on each other and largely explained why the Colts went just 72-82-1 under his reign and missed the playoffs each of the last five years.

Here are the costliest moves that contributed to Ballard's firing.

February 2018: The botched Josh McDaniels hiring

Indianapolis needed a new coach after Chuck Pagano's firing in 2017. Ballard led the search process, identified New England Patriots offensive coordinator Josh McDaniels as his primary target and held multiple interviews with him before selecting him as the man for the job at the end of his Super Bowl run. The sides agreed verbally to terms on a contract, and the Colts announced McDaniel as their coach and scheduled an introductory press conference. But then McDaniel backed out.

Ballard was left blindsided and found himself scrambling to find a new candidate while other teams filled their vacant coaching positions. The Colts ultimately settled on Frank Reich, whose hiring panned out well given the circumstances. He accounted for both postseason appearances of the Ballard era and logged three winning seasons in four and a half years until his firing in 2022. But while Reich oversaw a period of success on the field, the wins always came with the context that he was not Ballard's first choice.

March 2021: The Carson Wentz trade

Philip Rivers, the second starting quarterback of the post-Luck era, announced his retirement at the end of the 2020 campaign and left Ballard in search of a signal-caller for the third consecutive offseason. While he did not lead the charge for Carson Wentz, he ultimately signed off on a trade that brought the Super Bowl champion to Indianapolis in exchange for a 2021 third-round pick and a 2022 conditional first-rounder. Reich was the primary force behind the acquisition as he hoped to reunite with the quarterback that helped him win the Super Bowl during his time as the Philadelphia Eagles' offensive coordinator, and Ballard gave the OK to invest multiple years of early-round draft capital to bring him in.

It did not work out. Wentz helped keep the Colts in the postseason hunt but delivered a clunker of a performance in a do-or-die Week 18 loss to the Jacksonville Jaguars that dashed their playoff hopes. Irsay was irate with how Wentz failed to deliver a win in that critical spot and publicly bashed both him and the decision to trade for him. Ballard and Reich were left with egg on their faces when their team owner forced Wentz out of town, rendering the trade to acquire him a total failure.

March 2022: The Matt Ryan trade

For the third consecutive year, Ballard put his faith in an aging quarterback in the decline phase of his career. He gave up a third-round pick to acquire Matt Ryan from the Atlanta Falcons, absorbed the final two years of his contract and guaranteed the remainder of his deal, which committed $54 million to a player who ultimately spent only one season on the roster and made him one of only three quarterbacks in the league at that time with a fully guaranteed contract.

Ryan played some of the worst football of his career over the first seven weeks of the year and paced the NFL in interceptions with nine when Reich announced a quarterback change. The Colts then fired Reich and brought in Jeff Saturday on an interim basis, and he reinserted Ryan into the lineup only to watch him play a role in Indianapolis falling on its face with the largest blown lead in league history later that season. That was the end of his run as the starter, and the Colts released him at the end of the year and had to eat the remaining money on his guaranteed deal.

February 2023: The Shane Steichen hiring

Following Irsay's failed experiment with Saturday as the interim coach, Ballard reprised his role as the leader of a coaching search and landed on Shane Steichen as the man for the job. Ballard saw Steichen's success as an offensive coordinator and his ability to develop quarterbacks, and tasked him with doing the same for a Colts franchise that desperately needed stability at the most important position. Steichen ultimately outlasted Ballard, but he is in hot water, too, for the 2-4 start to the 2026 season and for last year's collapse.

If Steichen does not right the ship in the weeks to come and concludes his tenure without a single postseason trip, his failures will be another mark against Ballard's record of coaching hires.

April 2023: The Anthony Richardson selection

It became clear over the previous seasons that a veteran quarterback could not take the offense to the next level, so the Colts tore everything down and started from scratch in 2023 and, for the first time in Ballard's career, used the draft to find their long-term answer at the position. Ballard landed on Anthony Richardson as his target with the No. 4 overall pick, which raised eyebrows at the time, considering the Florida product had just one year of starting experience in college and was nowhere near refined as a passer. Richardson's uncanny athleticism masked the throwing concerns in the pre-draft process, but it was not enough to prevent him from flaming out as an NFL starter.

An AC joint sprain cut Richardson's rookie year short after five games, and he struggled the following year en route to a benching that inserted Joe Flacco into the lineup as his replacement. Richardson then lost a position battle to Daniel Jones in 2025 and missed the majority of the season with a fracture in the orbital bone in his eye. While he remains on the roster, Richardson is a bust of a first-round pick at this stage of his career.

November 2025: The Sauce Gardner trade

When the Colts started last season at 7-1, Ballard saw it as his opportunity to go all-in. What was supposed to be a game-changing trade to elevate the defense and push Indianapolis into the postseason, however, ultimately became a large part of Ballard's undoing as general manager. He paid the New York Jets two first-round picks and wide receiver Adonai Mitchell in exchange for cornerback Sauce Gardner. At the time, it seemed like a high price to pay but a potentially worthy one considering Gardner's status as a two-time first-team All-Pro honoree and rising 24-year-old superstar.

With the benefit of hindsight, the trade was a complete failure. The Jets turned the first of two draft picks into a potentially foundational tight end in Kenyon Sadiq, made Mitchell a key piece of their passing attack and are poised to add to their young core in 2027 with the second first-rounder. The Colts, meanwhile, mortgaged their future for an underperforming cornerback who is not nearly living up to his contract as a top-five earner at his position.

Gardner bounced in and out of the lineup last season with a calf injury, which did not help the Colts in their failed push for a playoff berth. That alone rendered the trade an early failure, because one of the main reasons Ballard made it was to strengthen the 2025 roster, which looked potentially like the best one of his tenure. Gardner has regressed even further in 2026. His defensive grade this year ranks 52nd out of 102 qualified cornerbacks, per PFF. His passer rating allowed of 123.6 is by far the worst of his career and is a marked step backward from his previous worst of 97.4, which came last year upon his arrival in Indianapolis.

March 2026: The Daniel Jones extension

Daniel Jones last season looked like a diamond in the rough and perhaps the long-awaited solution Ballard spent years searching for at the quarterback position. He logged career-best numbers in practically every meaningful category as the orchestrator of Indianapolis' early-season surge. It was a mid-career breakout for a former first-round pick who flamed out after six years with the New York Giants. But then he tore his Achilles.

Ballard had a decision to make in the offseason: Let Jones walk in free agency and attempt to come back from his injury elsewhere or lock him into another contract and hope for a full recovery. He took the latter route and signed Jones to a two-year, $88 million deal that includes $60 million guaranteed. It was an aggressive move, but Jones played at a level that warranted it prior to his injury and was on an incredibly fast recovery timeline, which set him up to return to the lineup for Week 1 this season.

Jones has struggled to recapture the magic of last year's breakout, though. The early returns on his contract are poor. He has more interceptions (six) than touchdowns (four), owns the worst completion rate of his career (59.6%) and holds a personal low EPA per dropback value of -0.19. Jones has never been more highly compensated, and at the same time, he has never played worse football.