{"id":759443,"date":"2026-02-18T02:55:55","date_gmt":"2026-02-18T02:55:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/759443\/"},"modified":"2026-02-18T02:55:55","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T02:55:55","slug":"alec-pierce-weighs-in-on-being-a-free-agent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/759443\/","title":{"rendered":"Alec Pierce weighs in on being a free agent"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Feb. 17, 2026, 5:24 p.m. ET<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\"><a href=\"\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Indianapolis Colts&#8217;<\/a> wide receiver is set to be a free agent and likely a highly coveted one at that.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Pierce recently spoke with SiriusXM NFL radio during Super Bowl week and briefly discussed his pending free agency.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">&#8220;Good with where everything stands,&#8221; Pierce said. &#8220;I think there&#8217;s going to be a lot of good things in front of me, and we&#8217;ll see, this next month might be crazy, but we&#8217;ll see what ends up happening.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Pierce is going to be in store for a big payday, whether that be from the <a target=\"_blank\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/teams\/indianapolis-colts\/338\" data-autotag=\"d3fda36a-3eb5-4700-8763-caba831c06ae\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\">Colts<\/a> or another team.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">This past season, he surpassed the 1,000-yard mark for the first time and has led the league in yards per catch the last two seasons.<\/p>\n<p>Expert NFL picks: <a target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener nofollow\" data-t-l=\":body nav (nfl)|e|auto spike click:4|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_sp_a\" href=\"https:\/\/sportsdata.usatoday.com\/football\/nfl\/picks\">Exclusive betting insights only at USA TODAY.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Pierce&#8217;s ability to win downfield is evident, but with that ability, he expanded his route tree this past season, impacting other levels of the field more often. That more well-rounded skill set is one of the reasons why he will be in high demand.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Pierce is a <a href=\"http:\/\/coltswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/colts\/2026\/02\/17\/nfl-franchise-tag-window-open-2-indianapolis-colts-players-candidates\/88715301007\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">candidate to receive the franchise tag<\/a>, but so is quarterback Daniel Jones. The purpose of tagging Pierce &#8212; or Jones &#8212; wouldn&#8217;t be to have him play out the 2026 season on that deal, but it would prevent him from hitting the open market once free agency begins, thus creating a longer runway for him and the Colts to negotiate a long-term contract.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">We recently took a look at what Pierce&#8217;s next contract could look like.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">Re-signing Pierce should be a priority for the Colts, and it sounds like that is the case.<\/p>\n<p class=\"gnt_ar_b_p\">&#8220;From Day 1, from when we worked him out at the University of Cincinnati, we had a great belief in Alec Pierce,&#8221;<a href=\"http:\/\/coltswire.usatoday.com\/story\/sports\/nfl\/colts\/2026\/01\/09\/colts-chris-ballard-evaluates-alec-pierce-being-free-agent\/88097993007\/\" data-t-l=\":b|e|k|\u2691u\" class=\"gnt_ar_b_a\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"> Ballard said<\/a>. &#8220;I think he&#8217;s been a good player every year. &#8230; I thought Reggie (Wayne) did a tremendous job helping him expand his game to all three levels. Alec&#8217;s a priority.&#8221;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Feb. 17, 2026, 5:24 p.m. ET Indianapolis Colts&#8217; wide receiver is set to be a free agent and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":759444,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[95878,2005,7,2004,392,2381,6,49915,95900,96014,95882,96015,95903,95895,95906,95883,95881],"class_list":{"0":"post-759443","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-indianapolis-colts","8":"tag-accessfree","9":"tag-colts","10":"tag-football","11":"tag-indianapolis","12":"tag-indianapolis-colts","13":"tag-indianapoliscolts","14":"tag-nfl","15":"tag-sstssportsnflcolts","16":"tag-sstsncolts","17":"tag-tagalec-pierce","18":"tag-tagamerican-football","19":"tag-tagdaniel-jones","20":"tag-tagindianapolis-colts","21":"tag-tagnfl-hub","22":"tag-tagoverall-positive","23":"tag-tagsports-news","24":"tag-typestory"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116089393932877678","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759443","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=759443"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/759443\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/759444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=759443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=759443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=759443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}