First-year Colts general manager Chris Ballard has said in the past that he'll be taking a best player available approach when it comes to the NFL Draft, and on Wednesday he clarified further exactly that will mean.

When discussing the issue at his pre-draft press conference, Ballard said he doesn't plan on passing up talent over need if there's a noticeable discrepancy but will go with need if the talent of the players he's picking from is similar.

"As long as the talent is close -- we're not talking a guy we think on our board is a top 10 pick and then all of a sudden we're taking somebody that's 40th," Ballard said. "That's the spread. Five to 10 slots, I don't see enough spread there unless there's just a huge separation in the talent to say you don't take the need."

Using an example from his days as a Kansas City Chiefs executive, Ballard recalled the time in 2014 when the Chiefs selected pass rusher Dee Ford in Round 1 despite having a strength in that area.

"If it's even, we'll go with the need," Ballard said. "But look, we put them through an exhausting process. We take each player from the tape, from the film -- everything matters. I always laugh when people say the workouts don't matter. Then why do we work them out? Absolutely they matter. But the workout has to match to the tape. So every level of the evaluation matters, from the tape, to the workouts, to the interviews, to the research you do on the player, to the medical, it all matters. One thing we will not do is if there's a player in a round, even if we're loaded at the position, we'll still take the player.

"I take Dee Ford as an example. We had Tamba Hali and Justin Houston who were humming, but we saw a player that we liked in Kansas City that could rush the passer, and that's who we ended up choosing."

Ballard has in the past stated his belief that passing talent for need is an error, and he re-emphasized that again on Wednesday.

"I think teams make big mistakes in the draft," Ballard said. "Lord knows I haven't been perfect on the teams I've been on; we've all made mistakes. But I don't ever want to pass up a really good player that I think has a long career in this league that fits our criteria of what we want. So we'll always be looking to add. If there's a player at a round that we identify and say 'Okay, this is a guy we think's going to be a good Colt, fits our criteria, we won't pass that guy up."