{"id":795209,"date":"2026-03-06T03:44:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-06T03:44:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/795209\/"},"modified":"2026-03-06T03:44:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-06T03:44:18","slug":"patriots-reportedly-will-be-in-strong-pursuit-of-colts-fa-wideout-alec-pierce-among-other-speculated-suitors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/795209\/","title":{"rendered":"Patriots reportedly will be in strong pursuit of Colts FA wideout Alec Pierce, among other speculated suitors"},"content":{"rendered":"

According to Essentially Sports\u2019 NFL Draft Analyst Tony Pauline, the New England Patriots are expected to shortly be in strong pursuit of pending Indianapolis Colts free agent wideout Alec Pierce<\/a>:<\/p>\n

\u201cI reported just before the Combine that the Las Vegas Raiders and Tennessee Titans are two teams ready to make a bid for Pierce,\u201d writes Pauline. \u201cIn the past few hours, I also learned the New England Patriots are hot for Pierce and are expected to make a big push for the wideout. This makes sense as just yesterday the team cut Stefon Diggs and, as stated above, they\u2019ve displayed little interest in Mike Evans.\u201d<\/p>\n

As Pauline notes, the tea leaves are clearly pointing toward the reigning AFC Champions making a strong push for Pierce in the initial wave of free agency, as the Patriots released former veteran All-Pro wideout Stefon Diggs to free up available team salary cap space and a starting wideout spot earlier this Thursday.<\/p>\n

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If the money\u2019s close, it\u2019s hard to blame a young wideout for wanting to catch footballs for the foreseeable future from Drake Maye over maybe Daniel Jones though. That goes for other teams\u2019 quarterback upgrades as well.<\/p>\n

Of course, the Colts had to reasonably expect this, right? <\/p>\n

If the Colts used their tag, which Indianapolis elected to place the transition tag on looming free agent starting quarterback Daniel Jones instead, they had to know that an untagged Pierce would draw a number of interested suitors, right? With no added protection or deterrence to outside competition to aid the Colts\u2019 in ongoing negotiations? It\u2019s put up or shut up time!<\/p>\n

By all indications, this close to almost hitting the open market, Pierce admittedly plans to test the waters\u2014entertaining all offers, including from Indianapolis and elsewhere. While the Colts still have some time to reach a deal, it\u2019s hard to see Pierce inking a contract extension ahead of time, unless Indianapolis dramatically overpays him\u2014and maybe even locks up Jones long-term ahead of time.<\/p>\n

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That would run counterintuitive to the Colts offering Jones the transition tag instead of the franchise tag (i.e., saving money), and really, it makes you wonder if the Colts should\u2019ve just gone the other route of franchise tagging Pierce, who seemed less likely to remain in Indianapolis untagged and was expected to have more interested suitors (albeit at a lower average annual value), than if it was Jones instead\u2014who likely has the Horseshoe, and maybe the Minnesota Vikings (although they also seem very much interested to see what happens with Arizona Cardinals quarterback Kyler Murray, especially on a minimum contract, if not more so).<\/p>\n

It\u2019s Jones that\u2019s rehabbing from a torn Achilles suffered late in the season, not Pierce after all.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s tough to swallow right now for Indianapolis fans if longtime general manager Chris Ballard can\u2019t close the deal on Pierce, and the Colts offense loses one of its most explosive playmakers\u2014just entering his athletic prime.<\/p>\n

The Colts could\u2019ve signed the 25-year-old Pierce to a contract extension earlier, particularly after the team traded AD Mitchell in a package for New York Jets All-Pro cornerback Sauce Gardner ahead of the past trade deadline.<\/p>\n

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Now, Pierce had a breakout season, and projects to have his best football well still ahead of him after enduring a few years of early development and growing pains with the Colts to begin his pro career. After all, a lot of NFL wideouts don\u2019t fully hit their stride until after their 3rd or 4th seasons in the NFL. Pierce appears no different.<\/p>\n

Not to mention, Piece has a unique NFL skill-set, as having led the league in highest average yards per reception two years in a row, he features elite vertical separation, the special ability to high-point the football, and then to be able to simultaneously utilize his excellent athleticism and body control, to make acrobatic downfield catches\u2014playing through physical contact.<\/p>\n

And to the Patriots of all teams?<\/p>\n

The Colts former longtime arch-nemesis?<\/p>\n

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That would downright want to make a lot of Colts fans puke over Pierce\u2019s new NFL home.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"According to Essentially Sports\u2019 NFL Draft Analyst Tony Pauline, the New England Patriots are expected to shortly be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795210,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2059],"tags":[16500,4994,390,2005,2772,833,7,2004,392,2381,4827,393,700,259,249,255,6,7536,531,394,6697,7421],"class_list":["post-795209","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-indianapolis-colts","tag-ad-mitchell","tag-alec-pierce","tag-arizona-cardinals","tag-colts","tag-daniel-jones","tag-drake-maye","tag-football","tag-indianapolis","tag-indianapolis-colts","tag-indianapoliscolts","tag-kyler-murray","tag-las-vegas-raiders","tag-mike-evans","tag-minnesota-vikings","tag-new-england-patriots","tag-new-york-jets","tag-nfl","tag-sauce-gardner","tag-stefon-diggs","tag-tennessee-titans","tag-tony-pauline","tag-wideout"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116180173853639033","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795209","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=795209"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795209\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795210"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795209"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795209"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795209"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}