Kevin Bowen Joins!

Nigel (0:00)

The Hammer and Nigel Show, hello.

The Colts lose to the Lowly Titans 26-20. My name is Nigel. That's Jason Hammer right over there with a very special guest on the hotline.

Jason Hammer (0:11)

Kevin Bowen, 107.5, The Fan joins us, part of the morning show. KB, it took losing at home to the worst team in the league for Chris Ballard to be shown the door. Your thoughts?

Kevin Bowen (0:26)

About time. Yeah, I mean, that's probably the easiest way to put it. Should have been done several, several years ago. I'd call it a small win for the Colts fan base, in that there's finally an admittance of wrong, finally an action of accountability from an organization that has lacked it. Now for several years, we can get more into this, but I do think it's really critical to do what they did now.

The NFL trade deadlines in three weeks, I think the Colts need to take advantage of that. I think they need to act like they are a seller at the deadline. So we'll see how all that plays out. But yes, I would say about time, plenty of evidence to have done this several years ago, but nonetheless, it's better than, you know, I guess continuing to play it out.

Jason Hammer (1:09)

You talk about the time being perfect. Season ticket holders were notified this past week, it's time to renew your season tickets, and there was an uptick in the price as well.

Now, that's not going over real well in the season ticket holder community, KB. So, you factor in the trade deadline coming up. I think season ticket holders also have a big hand in this.

Kevin Bowen (1:35)

Yeah, you know, and I thought yesterday it was probably one of the smaller crowds I've seen inside of Lucas Oil in quite some time.

You know, just a really, really sparse crowd, especially for a game when, you know, it's still relatively early in the season. I get, maybe there's some people on fall break, but I was surprised to see it to that level there. So yeah, I think that is a factor. Obviously, for those that were there, you heard the Boo Birds, you heard the Fire Ballard Chants, and that's been a pretty constant theme throughout the early part of the season. And then just more embarrassment. I mean, you lose to a woodless Titans team. They hadn't scored over 20 all year. They scored 26 and one half. You know, you've got your previous, you know, golden era in the building and you put that effort against them. The Titans had lost 11 straight AFC South games. Not that there needed to be whatever some sort of cherry on top, but I think, you know, that was honestly a pretty fitting way to go out.

Nigel (2:27)

Let's flip it around this morning. It happened to tune in right as you guys announced that Ballard had been let go. You almost seemed shocked, very surprised. Were you shocked that that move was made this morning?

Kevin Bowen (2:42)

I think the shock, Nigel, was more just like seeing it and then being like, oh wow, this is not AI. Like this is really happening. You know, because in NFL terms, like October 19th is early for a firing. But again, I will stress this.

I think it's so critical to do it now. And I would argue, I think both the GM and the head coach need to go, but I would argue it's more important to get rid of Ballard now than Stike him. And the reason for this is over the next three weeks, without a first-round pick for next year, you have got to take a long and hard look at your roster with their interim GM Ed Dodds, and you have got to be again, a seller at the trade deadline. You know, this goes for pretty much any professional sport, but especially football.

This new GM is going to walk in here and will uproot the roster. I mean, anybody that is old and expensive, good luck hanging, you know, here. It doesn't matter if you're good or not. That's the reality of how, you know, GM, new GM situations work around the league. So between now and November 10th, that trade deadline, if you could move some of these pillar players, DeForest Buckners of the World, Quint Nelson of the World, Jonathan Taylor of the World, Grover Stewart, Tavares Hort, you know, whoever else falls into that boat, you have to explore those things. You're not going to move them all, obviously. But if you can start to get a second or a third round pick back and try to recoup what right now is the 10th overall pick, that's what the New York Jets have right now from you. They have the 10th pick of next year's draft. You have to make your situation more attracted to a new general manager. That is a must. If you read Carly Ersie's statement today, she did stress the now part of it. I could not agree with her more in that it is paramount to take advantage of the next couple of weeks, try to help you out from a resource standpoint, going into what is going to be obviously a pretty big rebuild.