{"id":776834,"date":"2026-02-26T04:40:29","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T04:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/776834\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T04:40:29","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T04:40:29","slug":"pff-lists-colts-breakout-new-lead-wideout-as-teams-top-franchise-tag-candidate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/776834\/","title":{"rendered":"PFF lists Colts breakout, new lead wideout as team\u2019s top franchise tag candidate"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">The Colts could ostensibly deploy the franchise tag on either <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pff.com\/nfl\/players\/daniel-jones\/39395\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Daniel Jones<\/a> or Pierce, but the latter feels more likely given his radiating market.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">Pierce was one of the better receivers in football last year with an 81.0 PFF receiving grade, 2.10 yards per route run and a 2.1% drop rate. Further, his 97.9 receiving grade slotted ninth among qualified wideouts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup _1teeyfa8 ls9zuh1\">Considering that Pierce\u2019s next contract should wind up around a $28 million AAV, the franchise tag seems like a reasonable play for the Colts if they\u2019re wholeheartedly committed to retaining the 25-year-old. Meanwhile, in Jones\u2019 case, almost all signs point to a reunion \u2014 and potentially an extension before the new league year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Colts could ostensibly deploy the franchise tag on either Daniel Jones or Pierce, but the latter feels&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":776835,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[2005,7,2004,392,6523,2381,6],"class_list":{"0":"post-776834","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-free-agency","13":"tag-indianapoliscolts","14":"tag-nfl"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116135095432043774","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776834","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=776834"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/776834\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/776835"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=776834"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=776834"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=776834"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}