Chris Ballard on QBs: You don't want to pass on a player who could be really good

The Colts are set to hold a quarterback competition between 2023 first-round pick Anthony Richardson and recent free agent signee Daniel Jones.

But Indianapolis has also done some work on the QBs in the draft, with pre-draft visits and workouts.

In his pre-draft press conference on Monday, Colts General Manager Chris Ballard told reporters that the team is just doing its usual due diligence.

“I think if you look every year — even when we had Andrew [Luck] — we brought quarterbacks in,” Ballard said. “I think you do that all the time. And we also, believe it or not, we worked out a couple. We went and visited a couple. I think you do that every year.

“The one thing you can see with the quarterback position now, you better get to know them in the draft process because you never know when it’s going to come back to you. That’s the one thing, I always kind of giggle when a quarterback turns us down, like, ‘No we’re not going to visit with you.’ Three years from now, we’ll see how that plays out — because you just look at it. The changing of teams now, the lack of patience, guys are… And everybody’s developmental curve and journey is different. So you never know when it’s going to come back around to you.”

So even with Richardson and Jones presumably leading the charge at QB, the Colts could potentially draft another.

“You don’t ever want to pass up a player you think has a chance to be really good,” Ballard said. “I think you say that for every position, but especially at quarterback. Like, I mean, I think Green Bay just in their history has done it back to Ron Wolf to Ted [Thompson] to Brian [Gutekunst] now, even when they didn’t need one, if one hit on the board that they liked and believed in, they would take him. And I think you’ve got to take an open mind to that.”

So could the Colts draft a QB early? Ballard didn’t dismiss the possibility.

“If there’s a player we deem is worthy of it, absolutely,” Ballard said. “Why wouldn’t we?"