How Colts GM Chris Ballard believes he can fix the team's culture of complacency

INDIANAPOLIS — The culture of the Colts' locker room landed under a microscope near the end of the 2024 season.

From the outside, the charge was led by ESPN analyst Pat McAfee, the former Colts punter who has built his brand into one of the biggest personalities in sports media and long been the chief national voice in full-throated support of the team.

McAfee’s criticism, along with the criticism of other former Colts, did not go unnoticed inside the buildings on West 56th.

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“Look, I heard everything that's been said, especially by ex-players,” Indianapolis general manager Chris Ballard said. “I don't agree with everything Pat said, I don't, but there's some truth to it. There is. You can't fool players. … I tell our team all the time, like players in that locker room, they can BS the media, they can BS their family, but they cannot BS each other. Pat was on good teams. Pat was a great player. Pat knows what it looks like. So, he saw the cracks.”

McAfee recognized that alarm bells were being sounded from inside the building by franchise cornerstones who didn’t like what they were seeing.

Cornerback Kenny Moore II, the team’s Walter Payton Man of the Year nominee, questioned the team’s work ethic and attention to detail after a loss to the Bills. Defensive tackle DeForest Buckner, a three-time Pro Bowler who is arguably the most respected player in the locker room, laid all of his concerns out there the day after the season ended, saying “ego” crippled the team defensively and a lack of competition led to complacency.

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“Buck is right,” Ballard said. “His assessment was right. That falls on me.”

Colts news: Colts DT DeForest Buckner on why the team's defense struggled this season: 'Ego'

Do the Colts have a culture problem?

The Colts believe the issue is deeper than surface level.

Deeper than players being late to practice or missing treatment.

Under coach Shane Steichen, the Colts fine players who fail to meet those types of expectations, a fact revealed by former defensive coordinator Gus Bradley, corroborated by players and addressed by Steichen himself.

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“I’m a firm believer in accountability, and, as rare as things come up, they are addressed immediately,” Steichen said. “I don’t let those things slide under the rug. They are addressed, whether it’s with a fine or bringing them in my office and talking through those things. … Accountability is a big part of this league. We’ve got to hold everyone to a high standard.”

The team’s leaders believe they have done the same, putting people in check when it’s warranted.

The most notable, public instances were Moore’s comments after the Buffalo loss and team leaders holding a meeting with starting quarterback Anthony Richardson after the 22-year-old tapped out of a key third down late in a game against the Houston Texans that the Colts had to have, a meeting first revealed by veteran center Ryan Kelly.

But those were not the only times.

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“It’s not like we haven’t called things out throughout the season,” Buckner said. "I feel like, as leaders in the locker room, we’ve held guys accountable. …. That’s one of the things, you can ask any of my teammates, that I do on a weekly basis.”

There were some issues among the team’s established leaders.

Middle linebacker Zaire Franklin opened a line of criticism by taking on McAfee on his “The Trenches” podcast, along with criticizing other NFL teams and future Colts opponents; Ballard responded to a question about Franklin’s podcast by saying, “Can’t create distractions.” The team’s players voted Richardson a captain for the second consecutive season, then found themselves correcting Richardson when Steichen benched the young quarterback for not paying enough attention to detail in preparation for games.

“He’d had good moments,” Ballard said. “It wasn't like it was just this constant, we're at the bottom of the (barrel) – and he's making all these mistakes all the way, no. He had really good moments, and then he kind of took a step back. That happens, it does. It's life. People make mistakes.”

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Steichen believes deeply in details, in preparation, in turning over every stone during the week to find weaknesses in his opponent’s game. It is the coach’s defining characteristic, the trait that prompts nearly everybody to say “he’s all ball” if asked to described Steichen.

His four pillars — character, preparation, consistency and being relentless — are connected in some way to the work a team puts in preparing for Sunday.

Moore’s comments after the Buffalo game indicated there were players on the roster who were not following their coach’s lead.

“I don’t think everybody is working as hard as possible, and obviously, it’s showing,” Moore said. “I’m not the type to sugarcoat it; honestly, I don’t think the urgency is there. I don’t think the details are there. I don’t think the effort is there, and I don’t see everything correlating from the meetings to practice to the games, and it shows.”

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Moore was not the only to suggest there were players who weren’t doing enough.

Bradley, the team’s outgoing defensive coordinator, said players needed to start taking ownership of the mistakes coaches and teammates were pointing out in their games; Buckner backed up Bradley’s belief, saying that at some point, players have to take personal responsibility for the mistakes they’re making.

The disconnect between Steichen’s zeal for the game and the players who weren’t following his lead was something the Colts head coach plans to evaluate this offseason.

“That's a good question,” Steichen said. “That’s something I’ve got to reflect on. We’ve all got to be on the same page because this is the ultimate team game.”

'We gotta have more competition'

Buckner believes he knows the reason for the disconnect.

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“I think there’s some comfortability in the building,” Buckner said. “We gotta have more competition in all aspects in the building. I feel like guys get complacent, for sure. You’ve got to continue to have people on edge to compete.”

Ballard agrees with his big defensive tackle.

When the Indianapolis general manager spent last week evaluating what has kept the Colts out of the playoffs for four consecutive seasons under his watch, he landed on the lack of competition in the locker room.

“I didn't create enough competition on the roster,” Ballard said. “There has to be real stress within that locker room, an uncomfortability that if I don't play well enough, my ass will not be on the field playing. That directly falls on my shoulders.”

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The NFL, for all its bells and whistles and money, is supposed to be a brutally unforgiving place.

Unlike other sports, few contracts are guaranteed, meaning a player has to keep living up to his contract long after he’s signed it, or the team will take the out as soon as the cap hit is palatable enough, sometimes cutting the reported value of a contract in half.

Because contracts aren’t guaranteed, most NFL players are always fighting for their spot in the starting lineup, on their team, in the league.

Ballard wanted to push back against that reality in the way he ran his team.

“My vision since I've been here has been to take care of our own guys,” Ballard said. “I want guys to be Colts for their entire career.”

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The past couple of seasons, Ballard now realizes he allowed that part of his vision for the Colts to become almost the entire vision.

“The hardest thing to do is evaluate your own team. ... I'm emotional and I care about our players, and I think sometimes I've let that bleed into how I built the team,” Ballard said. “Instead of really creating competition throughout and throwing new blood into the locker room, new players into the locker room, I said, ‘You know what? We're going to run it back.’ That was a mistake.”

A mistake because too many players no longer had to fight for their roles on the team, no longer felt the reality of the NFL pressing on their shoulders with every snap.

“That created a complacency within,” Ballard said. “That's what Buck was talking about. There was an entitlement that, ‘You know what, I'm back. I deserve to be back.’ Which, yes, you did. But there's also an expectation and a standard that you have to uphold.”

When the Colts opened training camp last August, there were only a few true battles for starting spots on the entire roster.

But those battles produced the season’s biggest surprises.

Former third-round pick Nick Cross had to beat out essentially the entire safety room to earn a starting spot for the first time in his career. Cross was far from perfect, but he made 146 tackles, three interceptions and six tackles-for-loss after playing just 414 defensive snaps in his first two NFL seasons.

Then there is Alec Pierce.

Pierce, a second-round pick, averaged 36.5 catches, 553.5 yards and two touchdowns through his first two seasons in the league, prompting the Colts to aggressively seek another explosive receiving weapon last offseason. Indianapolis was rebuffed in its attempts to trade up in the draft, and the Colts settled on Texas receiver Adonai Mitchell in the second round.

Pierce had plenty of reason to believe he hadn’t been given enough chances to showcase his abilities in his first two seasons. The quarterbacks who handled most of the snaps in Indianapolis in 2022 and 2023 were poor matches for Pierce’s talents as a deep threat, and by all accounts, he’d been a model teammate, refusing to complain while taking arrows from the public about his play.

When Mitchell was drafted, Pierce finally said something, going to Ballard’s office to ask the general manager what the selection of Mitchell meant for him.

“Nothing,” Ballard told Pierce. “Compete.”

Pierce blossomed in 2024, catching 37 balls for 824 yards and seven touchdowns, becoming only the second wide receiver since 1992 to average at least 22 yards per catch on 37 catches or more; DeSean Jackson is the only other receiver to perform the feat, pulling it off in 2010.

“They drafted AD in the second round this year,” Buckner said. “And as you saw, AP’s game just elevated.”

Can the Colts fix their culture in one offseason?

“Culture, to me, is about winning,” Steichen said.

The Colts haven’t won enough for four consecutive seasons. All of those missed opportunities take a toll. For years, Indianapolis players have struck a hopeful tone at the end of the season, believing the team is close enough to get over the hump.

This time, a few players admitted it was a little harder to see than it had been in the past.

“We have some things to figure out as far as all the pieces to the puzzle,” Moore said, then acknowledged he didn’t know exactly what those pieces are. “I don’t know all the answers. My job on this team is to be the best cornerback and best teammate I can be. … I don’t want to be dismissive at all. I just don’t have the answers that you guys are asking me (for). Those are tough questions to ask.”

Moore isn’t going anywhere.

But at least one veteran who will be a free agent, blocking tight end Mo Alie-Cox, acknowledged that the team’s lack of success will play a role in his offseason decisions, even though he has been in Indianapolis for every one of his eight seasons in the NFL.

“We’ve won here, but we’ve kind of been in the same position for a while,” Alie-Cox said. “Taking the next step forward Not saying that we can’t do that here, but I’m 31 now, I’m older. Being an older veteran, just weighing things like that.”

There are still Colts who believe the franchise is close to turning things around.

A handful of prominent Colts, including Richardson and Steichen, believe it deeply.

“I mean shoot, I do believe we're close, and if I didn't believe that, there's something wrong,” Steichen said. “Every year in this league can flip. Every year is a new year. We're going to work like crazy this offseason to get it flipped in the right direction.”

Indianapolis owner Jim Irsay echoed some of Steichen’s thoughts in the statement he released announcing that Ballard and Steichen would be back in 2025. From one perspective, a coach has to believe his team is close; he has to believe his team can win every game.

But Irsay also acknowledged that simply making the playoffs isn’t enough for a franchise that wants to win championships.

From that perspective, Ballard and the rest of the offense cannot be thinking the Colts are close.

Not if they’re going to rectify the mistakes of the last four years.

“When you're 8-9, there's probably a ton of spots where you could look and convince yourself that we were almost there,” backup quarterback Joe Flacco said. “I don't necessarily think that's the right mindset. I don't think we should be trying to trick ourselves into thinking that we're almost there. I think we should acknowledge, yeah, we are almost there, but we're not there. I think when you acknowledge that, you free yourself up to get better and take that next step.”

Ballard agrees with his veteran backup quarterback.

If he’s learned anything from the last four seasons, it’s that overestimating what he has in the locker room can lead to a complacency that has crippled the Colts.

“Going 8-9, that's not close,” Ballard said. “Now, I'm not saying we won't be closer when we get to the start of the season, but right now sitting here today, we're an 8-9 football team and we’ve got to own that. We are not good enough. We're not, and we've got to be able to address and identify the right avenues to acquire the right players that can move the needle – and have not done that in the last four years.”

Culture is an all-encompassing word, a catch-all used to describe an awful lot of different things.

From the sounds of it, what the Colts need is competition, and by definition, that means adding more talent to the roster at almost every position.

That’s how Ballard believes he can change the culture in Indianapolis.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts: How Chris Ballard plans to fix team's culture