INDIANAPOLIS – Quenton Nelson remembers the text well.
Midway through the sixth-overall pick’s first training camp and preseason with the Colts in August 2018 and tracking toward starting, Nelson’s new general manager wasn’t pleased with the Notre Dame standout’s performance and execution on the field.
He could’ve found Nelson after practice or a game or back-channeled his displeasure through the coaching staff, but Chris Ballard just fired off a stream-of-consciousness text and played it straight.
"Right now, you’re playing like an average guard," the message read.
“That’s the kind of accountability he had with his players and he pushed me to be even better,” the eight-time Pro Bowler and six-time AP All-Pro selection said. “Yeah, appreciate him.”
The sentiment was shared throughout the Colts' locker room Wednesday, 48 hours after members of the organization learned of principal team owner Carlie Irsay-Gordon’s decision to fire the team’s GM for nine-plus years. The news came in the wake of an embarrassing 26-20 home loss to the previously winless Tennessee Titans. The game ended with a cascade of boos and ‘FI-RE BALL-ARD’ chants as the Colts jogged off the sideline and through the tunnels of Lucas Oil Stadium, having fallen to 2-4.
“Waiting would only delay the important work that needs to begin now,” Irsay-Gordon wrote in a Monday statement.
Irsay-Gordon closed with a pledge that her franchise would remain focused and driven by competition, improvement and winning.
Seventy-three of the 76 players in the locker room could point to Ballard as the central reason they're in Indianapolis – 32 of them selected by Ballard’s front office during his 10 drafts. And with that comes a sense of responsibility.
“During training camp and OTAs, we were all preaching that everybody has a part in the success and failures of this team, so I feel like we all have a certain part in it,” said backup quarterback Anthony Richardson Sr., whom Ballard selected with his highest pick as the Colts' GM, fourth-overall in 2023. “I texted him when it happened and I just told him I appreciated him for believing in me and having me here.
“I do hope everything goes the way he wants it to go or plans for it to be, but it does hurt a little bit. He was a great guy, and he has a part in all of us being here. I always will forever appreciate that.”
If Richardson was Ballard’s highest pick, All-Pro cornerback Sauce Gardner may have been the former Colts GM’s biggest gamble.
Ballard’s Colts sat 7-2 atop the AFC last season with the NFL’s most potent offense led by a pair of MVP candidates in new starting quarterback Daniel Jones, whom Ballard had signed that offseason in free agency, and longtime star running back Jonathan Taylor. The defense, though, had crucial holes for a schedule that included six straight games to end the season against eventual playoff teams. Ballard made the type of all-in move that had been rare during his tenure, something Irsay-Gordon had pushed him toward in recent months.
Ballard surrendered the team’s next two first-round picks, plus young receiver prospect A.D. Mitchell, for the two-time All-Pro and 2022 Defensive Rookie of the Year who had signed the NFL’s richest-ever deal for a cornerback that summer. Analysts argued over the price, but no one could doubt Ballard’s dedication to helping the franchise end its then-four-year playoff drought.
“We appreciate everything Ballard did. Obviously, I probably wouldn’t be here without him,” Gardner said Wednesday. “I appreciate him. He’s a great person. ... As players, we’re always going to take the blame. It’s a win-and-loss-based league and we definitely feel that way, but we’ll keep going to work.”
That sentiment still lives with Jones, who in Gardner’s first game as a Colt suffered a fractured fibula against the Falcons that hampered his play. After two straight losses, Jones would tear his right Achilles tendon a quarter into an eventual Week 14 loss in Jacksonville that cost him the final four games.
Jones has been nowhere close to the same player this season. Hampered by the loss of No. 1 receiver Alec Pierce to a reaggravated heel injury Pierce initially had surgery on in late March and a young defense that has significantly regressed, Jones and the rest of Ballard’s roster have severely missed the mark six games into 2026.
“I certainly do," Jones said when asked if his play contributed to Ballard's firing. "I think we all do, and that’s the tough part about it is your play and the results of these games effects people in this building. There’s a definite responsibility there, and you feel that as players, and I feel that as a quarterback.
“I think there’s a reaction here in the locker room, within the building, and you understand kinda what’s at stake, so we know we’ve got to play better. We’ve got to win and we’re taking that very seriously.”
But there’s another legacy that Ballard left.
That player the Colts’ now-ex-GM sent an electronic kick in the butt to before he’d played his first NFL game doesn’t exactly share the same sentiments as his teammates. Nelson, who finds himself in a contract year with an uncertain future and the prospect of hitting free agency for the first time, continues to be powered by an unrelenting motor.
Nelson took ownership of then-Colts head coach Frank Reich’s firing midway through the 2022 season, at a time the offensive line proved inconsistent – “I feel like there’s times this season that I let down Coach Frank and contributed to his firing,” Nelson said four years ago. This time, one of the NFL’s best guards is confident he’s playing his best.
“I feel like every single day, I give my absolute best, so I have no regrets about the work I put in, and therefore the performance I’ve given this year,” Nelson said. “I literally give everything – that way, on Sunday, whether I play good or I play bad, there are no regrets.
“I think a lot of guys had great relationships with Chris, but at the same time, when someone goes down in a game, you don’t really have time to mourn or think about that. It’s next man up, and we attack. We attack the next week.”
Joel A. Erickson and Nathan Brown cover the Colts all season. Get more coverage on IndyStarTV and with the Colts Insider newsletter.
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Colts players mourn Chris Ballard's firing: 'You understand what's at stake'