Denver Post: Colts Wanted Broncos Practice Squad Runningback Lance Ball

Tip to coltsfan723.

With the injury bug mutating into an injury Godzilla, the Colts have had to sign a number of players 'off the street' to fill certain positions. Chief among them is running back, where both Joseph Addai and Mike Hart are out this week with injuries. Early season running back and kick returner Devin Moore is already on IR, and Donald Brown has battled hamstring issues all season. This has forced the Colts to promote players like Javarris James from the practice squad.

However, even with James on the active roster, the Colts still only had two healthy back heading into Sunday's contest with the Bengals. We know yesterday that the Colts were awarded Joique Bell off waivers yesterday. What we didn't know, until today, was that Bell was probably not the Colts first choice.

Mile Klis of the Denver Post reported today that the Colts were looking to sign Broncos practice squad runningback Lance Ball.

Interest from the Indinapolis Colts in Lance Ball pushed the Broncos to promote their top preseason running back from the practice squad to the 53-man roster today.

Ball said he was headed to Indianapolis, where he played his rookie year, until the Broncos promoted him.

To make room for Ball, the Broncos waived tight end Daniel Coats, who was signed a day earlier.

"There was some interest in Lance," said Broncos coach Josh McDaniels. "We've spent a lot of time with Lance. We like the way he's progressed in our system. You have to make a choice sometimes. You've invested a lot of time and effort into him. He's invested a lot of time and effort into our system. He's on the practice squad to develop and hopefully have a future with us. So based on the interest there was in Lance we went ahead and made that choice. We still have an interest in Coats, too. It's unfortunate it had to happen that quick."

In case some of you don't know how this works, any player on a team's practice squad can be signed by another team. The only catch is once that player is signed, he goes on that team's active roster.

For me, this is a bit of a douche move by Denver coach Josh McDaniels. The Broncos already have Knowshon Moreno, Correll Buckhalter, and Laurence Maroney in their backfield. Yet, despite talent at the RB position, and a strong offensive line, the Broncos are the worst rushing team in football, averaging under 70 yards a game.

Somehow, I doubt having Lance Ball on your active roster is going to pump those numbers up, Josh.

Then again, regarding McDaniels, we aren't dealing with a terribly smart coach here. McDaniels is catching major flak for trading runningback Peyton Hillis to the Browns for Brady Quinn during the off-season. Quinn is currently the third string QB in Denver. Meanwhile, Hillis just had a 184 yard, 2 TD day against the Patriots last week. For the season, Hillis has 684 yards and 7 TDs, averaging 4.8 a carry. Denver's entire rushing output for 2010 is only 583 yards, averaging 2.9 a carry.

Yeah, Josh McDaniels truly sucks.

Hurts me to see my buddy John Bena have to tolerate this idiot pissing all over his favorite football team. For all the fair criticism we give Jim Caldwell, take heart that he isn't the total moron that is Josh McDaniels. The former Bill Belichick ball boy is now 4-12 since starting last season 6-0. His biggest claims to fame in Denver is trading away all of their talent and watching that talent thrive on other teams.

Back to Lance Ball, he once played for the Colts in 2008. We all remember him for his impressive performance in the final game of Tony Dungy's coaching career at Lucas Oil Stadium. Ball was waived prior to the start of the 2009 season due, in part, to him being a similar back to Mike Hart. It would have been nice to see him back in a Colts uniform this season. We interviewed him last year and he was a cool dude. I hope he can get a fair chance to showcase his skills someday.