Zak Keefer

zak.keefer@indystar.com

INDIANAPOLIS – On Wednesday he touched on Andrew Luck's shoulder and Pat McAfee’s retirement and David Parry's night from hell. He opened up on what it was like cutting D’Qwell Jackson. He addressed his relationship with his head coach (he and Chuck Pagano are all good, apparently), the perils of free agency (“We have to be right,” he stressed) and the 17 consecutive days he and his staff have spent poring through film.

Welcome to Indianapolis, Chris Ballard.

Yet beneath all the moving pieces, beyond the deadlines and the looming decisions, there was this from the Indianapolis Colts’ first-year general manager last week at the NFL Scouting Combine, a peek into how the next few months – and perhaps years – are going to play out.

“I think we all want instant coffee right now, but that’s not reality,” Ballard said.

Those words offer a lens into the man’s football philosophy, into how he plans on reviving this stagnant franchise. At the moment, the Colts’ defense is a mess. The star quarterback is coming off surgery. The starting nose tackle was recently arrested for stealing a golf cart and crashing it, among other things.

There’s work to be done.

Ballard’s to-do list is long. His credo at the moment: Patience.

“Reality is it takes time to build a team, it takes time to build a locker room,” Ballard continued. “And those guys have to grow together and come together. I don’t know any championship team that didn’t have a great locker room and grow together. It’s just hard to throw people into a locker room and expect a winner. It just doesn’t work that way.”

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Ballard’s right. Fifteen years in this league have taught him that. Chemistry – within units, within locker rooms, within organizations – cannot be manufactured, or bought, or faked. It can’t be expedited. It evolves organically, through years of planning and practicing and playing.

Patience, Ballard says.

The manner in which the Colts were constructed in recent years – a young core forced to blend with plug-and-play free agents – proved inadequate at best, disastrous at worst. In the end, it cost the Colts wins and Ryan Grigson his job. A once-ascending franchise has regressed.

The team’s shift in philosophy matches Ballard’s belief: The only way to sustain success in today’s NFL is to build a winner, brick-by-brick. Look at New England. Look at Pittsburgh. Look at Green Bay. It’s easy to say and hard to pull off. That’s Ballard’s mission moving forward in Indianapolis.

And he’s made no secret in how he plans on accomplishing that. The state of the locker room, he has noted more than once since taking over in late January, is vital to a team’s livelihood. He’s made it clear: This is essential.

“You can’t win without a strong one,” Ballard said the day he was introduced as the team’s new GM. “You can’t buy a locker room; that has to be developed over time.”

It’s not that the Colts’ locker room has necessarily been toxic in recent seasons, but there have been ruptures, both publicly and privately. A pair of back-to-back 8-8 seasons – not to mention more than one highly-priced free-agent flop – hasn’t sat well with a number of players.

It was just last offseason that former tight end Coby Fleener, immediately after signing a lucrative deal with the Saints, told ESPN.com that the Colts’ disappointing 2015 campaign was “one of those situations where it really reveals character ...” and that “it was pretty apparent” that some players on the roster were “along for the ride.”

Almost immediately, Jerrell Freeman, another Colt to find employment elsewhere after that season, shot back.

“He didn’t have the guts,” Freeman told WTHR.com of Fleener. “I despise guys like that. That’s what little girls do, talk about you when you’re not around.”

There was also more than one Colt who resented the lucrative deal and me-first, team-second mantra of former safety LaRon Landry, who proved one of the many free-agent busts of Grigson’s time in Indy. Popped for violating the NFL's performance-enhancing drugs policy and suspended four games during the 2014 season, Landry was released after two years in Indianapolis. Soon enough, he was popped again.

Ballard vehemently shot down the notion that the Colts won’t be players in this week’s free agency market; it’s not that they won’t dabble, it’s that they’ll do so selectively. They’ll do their homework, both on a player’s production and his reputation. Handing a player a fat contract, then tossing him into a locker room full of players he doesn’t know – and hasn’t yet earned the respect of – remains a risky venture.

It happened far too often during the Grigson years.

“Let me give you an example,” Ballard explained. “You pay a guy a lot of money, well, the locker room is watching. The guy has to be a worker, has to be a good teammate, has to earn it. Has to earn that money and earn that right. And he’s got to be a fit for what you’re doing offensively and defensively.

“Are we going to be 100 percent right? No,” Ballard cautioned. “I wish I was. I’ll end up where (Bill) Polian was (in the Hall of Fame). But I’m realistic.”

Another layer to the locker room dynamic is the general manager’s relationship with the players. It’s been clear from the start: Ballard is not Grigson. While not a requisite for success, Ballard’s personal touch is already being lauded by the players who’ve spoken with him. Instead of releasing Jackson, an 11-year vet and defensive captain, over the phone, Ballard insisted doing it in person.

“I wanted to be able to look him eye-to-eye,” Ballard explained. “The right thing to do was look D’Qwell Jackson in the eye and pay him the respect that he deserved and give him a chance to give him another opportunity to play (with another team).”

Ballard’s handling of Jackson’s situation went over well among the players still on the roster, according to several. Freeman, on the other hand, did not offer a flattering portrayal of the Colts’ front office after he signed with the Bears last March.

“I went into free agency and it was pretty much, ‘Good luck,'” Freeman said last season. “When I did get the Bears offer and we tried to go back to them, (the Colts) were like, ‘Yeah, looks like a good deal. Take it.’ So I was like, ‘I guess it’s over.’”

No matter now. The Colts have turned the page. It’s Chris Ballard’s team moving forward.

There are holes to fill, lots of them. The team desperately needs linebackers. Some depth on the defensive line wouldn’t hurt. Decisions in free agency await. The quarterback is expected to miss a good chunk of the offseason.

Patience, Ballard says.

Call Star reporter Zak Keefer at (317) 444-6134 and follow him on Twitter: @zkeefer.