Colts GM Chris Ballard Wants Only 5 Minutes Between 1st-RD Picks at NFL Draft

Indianapolis Colts general manager Chris Ballard has a take on the NFL Draft pace and it's not the one most fans would expect. Cut the clock, he told The Rich Eisen Show. Cut it more.

Ballard checked in on the show a few days after the draft wrapped. He told Rich it usually takes him about four days to recover before his body comes back online.

"My body just shuts down," Ballard said. "So I feel better. I'm whole again."

Rich, who anchors NFL Network's draft coverage and grinds through 257 picks from a stationary chair, asked if Ballard is a pacer during picks. Ballard didn't hesitate. He paces. Constantly. Rich had a little fun with the Indiana setup, then steered into the actual question. The league shortened the first round to eight minutes per pick this year. Did Ballard like it?

He loved it. He'd cut it further if he could.

"I'm all for cutting it to five if we could do it," Ballard said.

Rich pushed back. Five minutes for a first-round pick? Ballard held the line. His logic was clean. By the time you're on the clock, you should know what you're doing. The board work, the trade conversations, the contingencies, all of that should be settled before the commissioner walks to the podium. If you're still debating who you're taking with the clock running, you've already lost the room.

"If we're on the clock and we're still debating who we're taking," Ballard said, "it's a little late."

Trade calls? Same answer. Ballard said teams are good at this part now. You know who you're dealing with. The framework is usually in place. The mechanics of the pick itself, he noted, are also dramatically faster than they used to be. No more phone calls into a war room, no more paper, no more sprinting cards up to a runner.

The whole first round came in just under three hours. Ballard was thrilled by that. He compared it to a game where the league is now trying to keep things under three hours, and the draft just hit the same mark.

Rich floated the idea of going even shorter on day three. Three minutes a pick. Ballard said he was fine with it. He doesn't think more time helps in the late rounds either. The discussions have already happened. You've got a small group of names you're choosing from. If somebody takes one of them, you move to the next.

Rich, who drafts heavily in his fantasy league and gets impatient with anyone over a minute, agreed on day three. But he made his case for night one. He needs the talking time. Ballard had effectively taken two minutes from him already.

"There's an I in Rich," Rich joked. "There's an I in Rich, and I's in Chris."

Ballard chuckled and gave Rich his out. Roger Goodell wants to move it along. The trend is one direction. Don't expect 15-minute first-round picks to come back.

The broader takeaway from a sitting GM was simple. The work happens before the clock starts. The clock is just paperwork.