Chris Ballard Went 10 Seasons Without an AFC South Title. The Colts Fired Him at 2-4.
The Indianapolis Colts fired general manager Chris Ballard on Monday morning, one day after losing 26-20 at home to a Tennessee Titans team that had not won a game all season. Owner and CEO Carlie Irsay-Gordon announced the decision in a statement. The Titans left Indianapolis at 1-5. The Colts are 2-4.
This should have happened a year ago. Possibly two.
Ballard was hired on Jan. 29, 2017, and leaves in his 10th season with a record of 72-82-1. He reached the playoffs twice, in 2018 and 2020, and won exactly one postseason game, the wild-card round at Houston. He is the only general manager in the AFC South who never won the division during his tenure. Not once in ten tries.
The Sauce Gardner Trade Was the Tell
On Nov. 4, 2025, with the Colts 7-1 and looking like a contender, Ballard sent the Jets his 2026 and 2027 first-round picks plus receiver Adonai Mitchell for cornerback Sauce Gardner. That is the move of a man who knew his window was closing and decided to spend somebody else’s future keeping it open.
Indianapolis climbed to 8-2, lost seven straight after its bye and finished 8-9. No team in NFL history had ever started 8-2 and ended with a losing record. Two first-round picks are gone, and the roster they were supposed to complete is 2-4.
Ballard understood the math. At a press conference on July 28 he said flatly, “I’m in the last year of my deal. We need to win.”
Irsay-Gordon Did Not Wait for January
Her statement made the reasoning plain. “Our standard is to compete for championships, and I believe a change in leadership is necessary to meet that standard,” she said. On the timing she was equally direct: “Making this change during the season was a deliberate decision. Waiting would only delay the important work that needs to begin now.”
That is a sharper instinct than the franchise has shown in years. Irsay-Gordon, who took over with her sisters after Jim Irsay died in May 2025, kept both Ballard and head coach Shane Steichen in January despite the 8-9 collapse. She gave them a season. They gave her 2-4.
She added one line that should worry everyone still employed at West 56th Street: “As I said at the start of the season, the sense of urgency has never been higher.”
Steichen Should Be Nervous
Steichen is in his fourth season and has not reached the playoffs once. After Sunday’s loss, with his own crowd booing, he said, “I don’t blame them for booing one freaking bit.” He also offered the standard promise: “We’ve got a lot to fix, and we’ve got to fix it in a hurry.”
Defensive tackle DeForest Buckner, a team captain, was blunter. “I’m sick and tired of the same song and dance every year,” he said.
No interim general manager was named. The Colts say they will conduct a thorough search, which in practice means waiting until the offseason and letting the next executive inherit whatever is left.
What the Next GM Walks Into
Quarterback Daniel Jones signed a two-year, $88 million extension in March, having torn his right Achilles in Week 14 of 2025. Anthony Richardson, the fourth overall pick in 2023, has now lost the starting job twice. The 2026 and 2027 first-round picks belong to the Jets. Buckner and Quenton Nelson both have contracts expiring after this season.
Irsay-Gordon said the decision does not change the team’s goals for the season. At 2-4 and two games back in the division, those goals are mostly aspirational. The useful part of her statement was the bit about work that needs to begin now, and the first honest thing anyone in Indianapolis has said in a while is that it should have begun sooner.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.
