Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Alec Pierce was drafted by the Colts in 2022. In his short career, he has evolved into one of the NFL’s top deep threat receivers, blending his size and speed with elite body control.
He told the “Up and Adams Show” with Kay Adams on March 4 that he loves Indianapolis, but after his first 1,000-yard receiving season in 2025, he believes his play merits a pay raise and an opportunity elsewhere.
“My phone’s just kind of been blowing up a little bit, especially yesterday with the whole franchise tag thing and all that,” he said. “I’m off of Twitter [X]. I know that’s kind of where the information’s at. So, I‘ll be trying to figure things out. I told my friends, ’text me if anything crazy, if you see any Adam Schefter tweets,’ and stuff like that, because I do like to follow that.”
The Colts placed the transition tag on quarterback Daniel Jones on March 3. Since league rules only allow one player to receive a tag, Pierce will hit free agency when the new league year begins next week.
Pierce and his agents expected the Colts to prioritize Jones, since quarterback is the most important position on the team, and, without a deal in place, they treated it as though they had no quarterback on the roster.
Pierce said he also expected his agents to hear from the team after they got Jones’s deal done and that his time in Indianapolis had come to an end.
“I love Indy,” he said. “I’ve loved playing there, great organization, great people in the city, just a ton of support. I know we haven’t been as good as we could be, and I know we can be. But now at this point, [I’ve] kind of earned the right to explore free agency, see what’s out there, and just make a decision that’s best for my career and for my family.”
Pierce was drafted by the Colts out of Cincinnati in the second round of the 2022 NFL Draft.
Listed at 6-foot-3 and 211 pounds with a 4.41-second 40-yard dash, a 40.5-inch vertical, and a 10-foot 9-inch broad jump, Pierce was a rare athlete. In his first season, he had 41 catches for 593 yards and 2 touchdowns; in 2023, he had 32 catches for 514 yards and 2 TDs. But he established his role in the offense with his acrobatic catches and ability to stretch the field vertically.
He turned it up to another level in 2024 and 2025, leading the league in yards per reception in both years. In 2024, he caught 37 balls for 824 yards and 7 TDs, with an average of 22.3 yards per catch; in 2025, he caught 47 catches for 1,003 yards and 6 scores, an average of 21.3 yards per catch.
Pierce said he wants to expand his role on the offense with his new team.
“There’s a lot of untapped potential,” he said. “And I think that’s what people see in me as a free agent, because the stuff I’m doing a lot of times [is] the hardest. ... Not every receiver can run deep balls and make plays down the field, because you’ve got to kind of have that skillset, be big bodied, be able to run stuff like that.”
He pointed out that he had 1,000 yards on just 84 targets. Since most of the best receivers in the game get somewhere between 130 and 150 targets on average, he believes he could push for the NFL’s single-season receiving yards record.
“I think that’s what I’m most excited about getting a big contract, is the coaches and the front office know they have to back up that contract. So, I’m no longer going to be an 80 target player,” he said.
“If I get paid this big contract, they’re going to have to throw me the ball more and just, and give me more things, because a lot of times, the stuff I was doing was all downfield. It was pretty low-percentage type stuff.”
He said he would also like to get more involved in the short and intermediate game with his new team.
