Are you ready, Indianapolis Colts fans? Your favorite team didn't do the thing general manager Chris Ballard normally does and stand pat. Instead, after a blazingly hot start, Ballard decided his team might be a real Super Bowl threat and added cornerback Sauce Gardner.
Did the Colts give up too much for Gardner, one of the best cornerbacks in the league? Maybe. Two first-round draft selections are a lot for any player. But cornerbacks, just like edge rushers, quarterbacks, left tackles, and a great wide receiver, are one of the most important positions in football.
A bigger question is how much Sauce Gardner's huge contract affects what Indianapolis does in the future. Gardner's cap hit in 2026 is only $9.5 million, and after adding the cornerback and trading wide receiver Adonai Mitchell as part of the trade with the New York Jets, Indy has about $40 million of cap room in 2026.
Indianapolis Colts might not be able to afford Alec Pierce after 2025
That comes with a huge caveat, though. Indianapolis has several players it needs to try to re-sign. One, obviously, is quarterback Daniel Jones. He is going to be expensive. So will wide receiver Alec Pierce, however. In fact, Indy might not be able to re-sign Pierce because of the future contracts of Gardner and what Jones's will be.
Pierce is having a very good season for Indianapolis. His yards per catch are slightly down (still a ridiculous 20.9 per catch), but that is because he is being used in different ways than simply, "Alec, go deep." That versatility is only going to help Pierce's asking price in free agency in 2026.
He is 6'3" and fast, but still only 25 years old. He is trending toward having his best season in terms of targets, catches, and receiving yards. Players can sometimes augment their play in the final year of a contract, but Pierce's numbers are outliers this season. They are good, as they almost always have been.
That means a team that wants to sign him should have a very good idea of what they are going to get. His market value could be as much as $18 million a season next offseason. That means he could have a cap hit of $25 million-plus by 2027. Gardner's is $36.1 million in 2029 and 2030. Assuming Daniel Jones is re-signed by the Colts, his cap hit will probably be at least $40 million by 2027.
While Indianapolis has $167,411,688 of cap room in 2027, Gardner's deal has yet to be factored in. He will eat up $21 million of that. Jones might eat up $40 million. Indianapolis also has to have room to potentially re-sign guard Quenton Nelson, running back Jonathan Taylor, and wide receivers Michael Pittman and Josh Downs, all of whom are free agents after the 2026 season.
That $167 million is going to go fast. Teams don't think one season ahead, but instead several seasons ahead. In other words, the Indianapolis Colts might believe they don't have room for Alec Pierce after this season.