Zak Keefer | IndyStar

Clark Wade, Clark.Wade@Indystar.com

Michael Conroy, AP

He hadn't slept in three nights when he walked into Jim Irsay’s office that day, fueled by adrenaline and ambition, pausing for a moment, collecting himself, readying himself, reminding himself, “Be you – nothing more.” It wasn’t that long ago Chris Ballard was teaching a history class at Hitchcock Junior High, putting off law school as long as he could, coaching kids in Nowhereville, Texas, drilling them so hard he once busted his collarbone in the middle of a practice.

If he was gonna do this, he was gonna do it his way. He’d worked too long. He'd climbed too far.

“I don’t wanna take a Band-Aid approach,” he told Irsay in the interview.

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No, Ballard wanted to do the opposite: He wanted to tear this roster apart, then build it back up. He’d need time. Patience. Belief. Irsay’s franchise hadn’t suffered through a losing season in five years, but the owner, a man steeled by five decades in the game, a man who still burned, privately, over the fact that the Indianapolis Colts’ greatest era produced only one Super Bowl triumph, sensed all that was at stake: Whomever he hired as his next general manager would be the man he entrusted with Andrew Luck’s prime.

If it took years to get it right, Irsay would wait. His roster was old. It was flawed. It needed an overhaul.

The owner bought in. He told Ballard to get to work.

What’s followed: a rebuild so swift, and so sudden, that it’s hard to remember that the Colts began the Ballard era with 17 losses in 22 games, the brand new GM flinging his pen in disgust inside the press box in Los Angeles after the first throw of the first game of his tenure. Scott Tolzien’s sideline floater against the Rams that day never had a chance. Neither did Ballard’s team. They lost by 37.

Sixteen months later the former junior high history teacher has built a team on the brink.

Clark Wade, Clark.Wade@Indystar.com

The pains of 2017 – pains that stretched well into 2018 – preceded a rapid, unthinkable rise. Ballard’s behind it all. He’s remade 81 percent of the roster, drafted nine starters in two years and plucked gems off the waiver wire (Kenny Moore, Mark Glowinski), the street (Dontrelle Inman) and Detroit’s scrap-heap (Eric Ebron). He faced criticism for not spending more cash in free agency, for trading back from the third pick last spring and grabbing a guard at six, then a small school linebacker at 36. He doesn’t hear much criticism now. Quenton Nelson and Darius Leonard are the first rookie teammates to earn first-team All-Pro honors since Dick Butkus and Gayle Sayers way back in 1965.

All the while, he answered no less than a million questions about Luck’s slow-healing shoulder, quieting rumors of a second surgery and a career in peril. He joked at one point that he was getting so many Luck questions that he was waking up in the middle of the night, screaming, “Patience! Process!” When the uncertainty was at its highest, he boldly promised the quarterback wouldn’t simply return in 2018, but would be better than ever. He was right.

He fired one coach and courted another, interviewing him twice, finalizing a deal, announcing the deal. Then Chris Ballard turned the humiliation of Josh McDaniels into the fortune of Frank Reich. The two had never met before February. “Hit it off right away,” Reich remembers.

Ballard fired off a 127-word text message to his staff amidst their darkest moment this fall – after an 8-point loss to the Jets that left them 1-5, tied for the worst record in football – and vowed that he wouldn’t let fear enter his mind. This would turn, Ballard promised. He just didn’t know when.

Then it did. His Colts are two wins from turning a 1-5 start into a Super Bowl berth.

'Show them how to win'

Clark Wade/IndyStar

Was it supposed to happen this fast? No. Probably not. But Andy Reid, the head coach Ballard worked with for four years in Kansas City, and the coach his Colts will face on Saturday at Arrowhead Stadium in the divisional round of the playoffs, isn’t surprised.

“He knows what he wants, and he’s got the energy to go get it, the energy and the eye to see it and go get it,” Reid said this week. “That’s important in that position.”

Ballard has blended young with old in Indianapolis, sprinkling in savvy veterans with a predominantly young core that’s growing with each passing week. Forty-three percent of this roster is made up of first- and second-year players, all acquired by Ballard, and only five of the 22 starters on offense and defense predate the GM’s January 2017 arrival.

He pulled one of those veterans aside in the days leading up to Saturday’s wild card game in Houston, leaving him with a missive. “Go out there and show them how to win,” Ballard told linebacker Najee Goode. “Be an example. Be an example.”

Goode sees a group that’s starting to remind him of the team he played on last year, an Eagles squad that rode a sizzling postseason run to an unlikely Super Bowl upset.

“It kinda all just fell into place here,” Goode says. “The rhythm is right, the movement is right, and I don’t see us losing to anybody if we stay in the groove we’re in. It’s all about positivity this time of year.”

The longest-tenured Colt has seen a shift, in the players Ballard has brought to Indianapolis and the manner in which they now work. Adam Vinatieri’s been here 13 years. He’s the only one left who saw Peyton Manning operate at the peak of his powers.

“Chris has brought in the right guys and the right coaches to fill this locker room with a ton of character,” Vinatieri said. “These are just hardworking, good dudes.

“Our philosophy in practice is much more intense than it was two years ago,” he continued. “They ran our butts off in training camp (this year) and lesser guys couldn’t have handled that. Guys did a great job. And that became the new standard, the higher standard. And that matters now. Expectations go up, and that’s a great thing.”

Filling the gaps

Matt Kryger/IndyStar, Matt Kryger/IndyStar

The Quenton Nelsons of the world – “the easiest pick I’ve ever been a part of, by far,” Ballard said after the draft – earn the headlines, and deservedly so. But look deeper on the roster and you’ll see the GM’s best work.

Look at the undrafted cornerback out of Valdosta State, a 2 a.m. waiver claim on cut day 2017 that’s turned into the heartbeat of the surprising secondary. Kenny Moore had 76 tackles this season and has become a weapon in the blitz game. “You can just feel him getting better and better and his impact growing and growing on the team in a lot of ways,” Reich said of Moore this week.

Last spring, Ballard was noticeably quiet in free agency, instead leaning heavy on his draft capital – he had 11 picks waiting for him – as the means to fortify his roster. “You don’t win games in March,” he likes to say. But his two biggest signings proved instrumental to the Colts’ sudden revival. Eric Ebron became one of the most dangerous red zone threats in football, snagging 14 touchdowns and earning his first Pro Bowl bid.

“Thank you for bringing me here,” he told Reich on the sideline Saturday in Houston.

Denico Autry, signed last spring to spark the defensive line, led the team with nine sacks, six of which came in December as the Colts clawed their way back into the playoff race. He was named a Pro Bowl alternate despite missing four games.

Along the offensive line, Anthony Castonzo’s early-season return certainly helped, but the unit didn’t fully hit its stride until Mark Glowinski – a late-season waiver claim last winter – settled in at right guard. “I get calls from all over the league,” says Colts’ line coach Dave DeGuglielmo, “and the first question they ask is, ‘Where’d you find 64?’”

Ballard signed him two days after the Seahawks cut him last December.

Just the start

“Let me put it this way,” Ballard said the day he took over, “I’m probably not completely ready to be a GM. I’m going to screw some things up. I’m going to make some mistakes and I’ll own them.”

He has. Sticking with Tolzien, for starters. He’s cut two draft picks from the 2017 class (Tarell Basham and Zach Banner). This roster isn’t a finished product by any means. “Are we good enough?” Ballard likes to ask himself over and over. “No,” always comes his answer.

But the foundation is being built. In two drafts, Ballard has snared a big-play safety (Malik Hooker), his running back of the future (Marlon Mack), the cornerstone of his offensive line (Nelson), a budding star at linebacker (Leonard) and slew of capable starters (Anthony Walker, Braden Smith, Tyquan Lewis, Kemoko Turay). That doesn’t include Nyheim Hines, who’s proved a versatile offensive weapon already, or Deon Cain, the rookie wideout who flashed early in camp before succumbing to an ACL tear.

They’re 24 months into the rebuild. They’re stocked with young talent. The offensive line is fixed. They have a franchise quarterback, finally healthy, who is under contract through 2021. They have a head coach every team with an opening last year now wishes they’d interviewed. They have two coordinators getting noticed. They have a projected $120 million in salary cap space, and nine draft picks coming.

The future looks bright, but the future can wait.

This season – the one that started 1-5 – isn't over yet.