Gregg Doyel

gregg.doyel@indystar.com

INDIANAPOLIS – Let’s get right to it: The Indianapolis Colts do have a need at running back and they will have the chance, several chances in fact, to draft Oklahoma’s Joe Mixon in April.

They can’t do it. Here, I’m speaking to new Colts general manager Chris Ballard:

You can’t do it.

Will he? We’ll know by April 29, the third and final day of the 2017 NFL draft.

What we know right now is that Ballard, a first-time GM hired in January, comes from an organization that took chances. To be clear, the Kansas City Chiefs were rewarded for it. With Ballard serving alongside GM John Dorsey, the Chiefs devoted three of their most recent 18 draft picks to known character risks. Two of them, cornerback Marcus Peters and kick returner Tyreek Hill, just made first team All-Pro.

That’s two more All-Pro picks than the 2016 Colts, whose lack of talent led to the dismissal of GM Ryan Grigson and the arrival of Ballard. The Chiefs won 12 games and the AFC West last season. What they did? It worked.

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Peters, the best cornerback in the 2015 draft, slipped to Kansas City at 18th overall in Round 1 because he was a hothead at Washington, getting himself kicked off the team after a sideline outburst. Having one or more tantrums, even one directed at his own coaching staff, is a red flag but hardly a disqualifier for future NFL employment.

What Tyreek Hill did?

That’s a disqualifier for future NFL employment. Well, it should have been. Get a load of this guy: He was charged with felony domestic violence and pleaded guilty at Oklahoma State to choking his pregnant girlfriend. He also punched her in the stomach. She was pregnant. When Hill and his world-class speed tumbled to the fifth round in 2016, the Chiefs took him.

Look, Ballard didn’t make that pick. And maybe he wouldn’t have, had he been running the Chiefs’ draft in 2016. If Tyreek Hill’s success in the NFL — if his employment in the NFL — rubs you the wrong way, good. But let’s not blame Ballard for that.

If the Colts pick Joe Mixon?

Let’s blame Ballard for that.

What I’m doing here, it might not be necessary. Oh, the Colts need a running back. They do. Frank Gore is coming off a 1,025-yard season, but he turns 34 in May and the Colts don’t have his replacement on the roster.

But it’s a leap — an impossible one, I'm hoping — to say the Colts will solve one running back problem by drafting Mixon and creating another one. Ballard strikes me as a classy man, a guy we’re going to really like here, someone whose GM work remains to be seen but whom we can trust to do right by the community.

Ballard met the media Wednesday at the NFL Scouting Combine, and I asked him about that balance between a surplus of talent and a deficit of character.

“We’re going to go A-to-Z to see what the problems are and see if it’s something we want to manage,” he said. “That’s an organizational decision, from Mr. (Jim) Irsay, from the rest of our ownership down to our marketing; how’s it going to impact our fans? You have to weigh all of that before you make a decision on a high-risk character guy.”

Good answer, right? Refreshing too. The Colts’ new GM just said he would take into account the optics of adding a guy with a character issue — how does it look? — before doing it.

Here’s how it would look for the Colts (or anyone) to draft Joe Mixon:

Disgusting.

In July 2014 before his freshman season at Oklahoma, Mixon got into an argument with a woman. The argument escalated from verbal to physical, with the woman striking Mixon on his neck.

Mixon punched her, breaking four bones in her face.

Despite the incident being caught on video, Mixon was allowed to enter a guilty plea, known as an Alford plea, in which he is allowed to still maintain his innocence.

Last year the NFL decided it would not invite to the combine draft prospects with convictions involving guns, sexual assault or domestic violence. Because of his Alford plea, Mixon was eligible to be invited. Because the NFL has learned from the Ray Rice incident, Mixon — a possible first-round talent — wasn’t.

But this is the NFL. Someone will draft him and hide behind talk of second chances, he's learned his lesson, never again, vomit.

The Colts have not been angels when it comes to drafting known character risks, but that’s not the bar here. Since 2013 the Colts have drafted four known risks — defensive lineman Montori Hughes (fifth round) in 2013, linebackers Jonathan Newsome (fifth) and Andrew Jackson (sixth) in 2014, and linebacker Antonio Morrison (fourth) in 2016.

And let me be clear: Not one of those picks was all that objectionable. Risky? Yes. Jackson (arrested twice on DUI charges) and Newsome (arrested on a charge of marijuana possession) were released after finding trouble again. Knuckleheads are gonna knucklehead, but the NFL is a business, not a civic club. The Colts rolled the dice under Grigson, they probably will roll the dice under Ballard, and up to a point it’s all good. There’s a difference between a red flag that could shrink your NFL opportunity — and a red flag that should end it.

Here’s what else Chris Ballard said Wednesday about character risks, this in response to a question that wondered how the success of Peters and Hill in Kansas City would inform his draft strategy here:

“Kids make mistakes,” he said. “These are young kids still growing up and they make mistakes, and we have to figure out — that’s our job, and our organization’s job — to figure out the guys that we’re willing to take a chance on.”

That’s how his response ended. This is how it began:

“Look,” he said, “I tell our scouts this: Ignore the noise. Ignore the noise. Let’s make our own opinion of people.”

Some noise cannot be ignored.

Find IndyStar columnist Gregg Doyel on Twitter:@GreggDoyelStar or atfacebook.com/gregg.doyel