Panthers get: WR Michael Pittman Jr., 2026 seventh-round pick
Colts get: WR Xavier Legette, 2026 fifth-round pick<\/p>\n
There\u2019s no comparing Pittman and Legette as players; Pittman has been far more productive and reliable during his career than Legette, who has struggled with drops and inconsistent play. But Pittman is making $22 million in the final year of the three-year extension he signed with the Colts. After racking up 1,152 receiving yards in his final year before that contract extension, Pittman has managed 808 yards in 2024 and 784 this past year. He dropped from 24th in yards per route run among wide receivers in 2023 to 43rd in 2024 and 44th in 2025.<\/p>\n
You might be willing to blame some of those yardage totals on subpar quarterback play, but as Pittman\u2019s numbers have fallen, Alec Pierce\u2019s totals have risen. Pierce, a downfield threat, is about to hit free agency, and with the Colts needing to sign Daniel Jones and Kwity Paye to new deals this offseason, I\u2019m not sure Chris Ballard can afford to pay Pittman and Pierce north of $21 million per year. If the Colts want to keep Pierce, moving on from Pittman will probably be part of that equation.<\/p>\n
All of Pittman\u2019s 2026 salary is nonguaranteed, so Indy could cut him if needed. He would have some modest trade value as a WR2 for teams that aren\u2019t spending a ton on their passing game, though. The Panthers fit the bill there, as Bryce Young, Jalen Coker and Tetairoa McMillan are all on their rookie contracts. The 6-foot-4 Pittman would be another big target in a Panthers wide receiver room full of them, and Pittman\u2019s work underneath would allow McMillan more freedom to work from the slot and at the intermediate and deep levels of the field.<\/p>\n
In return, the Colts would land a Day 3 pick and Legette, who is due just $4.4 million combined over the next two seasons. If Indianapolis needs to spend money elsewhere, Legette would make sense slotting in as a third or fourth wide receiver behind Pierce, Josh Downs and potentially Ashton Dulin. Ballard has loved drafting high-end athletes at receiver during his time in Indianapolis, and Legette certainly qualifies. Having just turned 25, Legette still might have some room for growth. And if he fails to get there, it at least wouldn\u2019t cost the Colts much.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Panthers get: WR Michael Pittman Jr., 2026 seventh-round pickColts get: WR Xavier Legette, 2026 fifth-round pick There\u2019s no…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":757386,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[2005,7,2004,392,3562,2381,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-757385","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-colts","9":"tag-football","10":"tag-indianapolis","11":"tag-indianapolis-colts","12":"tag-indianapolis-colts-news","13":"tag-indianapoliscolts","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116083887505412068","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757385","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=757385"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/757385\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/757386"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=757385"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=757385"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=757385"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}