In hindsight, it is easy to see that Indianapolis Colts general manager Chris Ballard entered the free agency period with two priorities. He was determined to retain quarterback Daniel Jones and receiver Alec Pierce. It may have caused him to trade away some established veterans and prohibited him from pursuing other players, but he succeeded on both counts.
The Jones deal has been criticized. The consensus is that he overpaid when such a move was not necessary. I disagree, but that’s a separate conversation. Today, we’re looking at the Pierce deal. That was met with mixed reactions across the league.
Some applauded Ballard’s ability to hold onto a homegrown budding star at a high-value position. Others thought the GM paid a lot of money for a player who had mainly been seen as a one-dimensional deep-threat.
Latest wide receiver extension makes the Indianapolis Colts' Alec Pierce decision look like a bargain
After the extension given by Green Bay to Christian Watson, Alec Pierce's signing looks a lot better than it did a month ago.
Let’s establish two things up front. It is hard to truly evaluate the Packers’ Watson because two of his four seasons have been cut short by injuries. (That fact should figure into his value – more on that in a moment.)
Second, wide receiver contracts in the NFL now exist in an Alice-in-Wonderland fantasy land.
Brian Gutekunst presented Watson with a four-year, $110.5 million contract. The average annual salary of 27.62 million makes him the 15th highest-paid receiver. There will be contract nuances regarding guarantees and escape doors that will need to be examined, but Watson is a young player, and the assumption is that he will play out the entire contract with Green Bay.
This places the 2022 second-round pick just behind Pierce on the league-wide pecking order. Pierce, who was also chosen in the second round of the 2022 draft, recently got a $114 million contract, or an annual average of $28.5 million.
This suggests the two players are very similar. That is undeniable.
Both came into the league as downfield threats. They were both big. They were both very fast. The question for both was whether they could do anything more than simply run deep patterns.
Both have now shown their respective teams that they can.
But if I’m Chris Ballard and the Colts, I have to feel a lot better about the investment I made. Part of it is health-related. They came into the league at the same time, but Pierce has played 64 games to Watson’s 48.
Pierce has never suffered a serious injury. Watson missed nine games in 2023 and seven last year. He has never played in more than 15 games in a year. Pierce has never played in fewer than 15.
But it goes beyond injury. If you adjust for the time Watson missed, he and Pierce have very similar numbers. Watson scores more touchdowns. Pierce has a better yards-per-catch. In most things, they are almost identical.
Going into the 2025 season, they were both seen as dangerous deep threats who had yet to prove they could be legit WR1s. And here’s where the difference emerges.
Last season, Pierce showed just that. Without losing much off his yards-per-catch (he led the league for the second straight season), Pierce began running a lot more intermediate routes. And he was very good at it. He still had to share targets with Michael Pittman, Tyler Warren, and Josh Downs, but as the season went on, it became clear that Pierce was worthy of WR1 money.
Playing with Daniel Jones clearly helped, but 2025 marked the second straight season in which Pierce put up an 11.9 yards-per-target. That was second in the league to New England’s Kayshon Boutte.
Watson posted a very good yards-per-target number as well, though not as good as Pierce’s. It is not unreasonable to say that Christian Watson, at this point, is the receiver that Alec Pierce was entering 2025. He may stay healthy and prove to be worthy of the contract.
But for pennies more, Ballard and the Colts locked up Alec Pierce after he had already proven he was at that level. That’s a good investment.
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