Colts’ Alec Pierce stunned as NFL’s most explosive WR in 2024, looks to level up on precipice of free agency

Sports

add

Who comes to mind first when thinking about the NFL’s top deep threats when closing your eyes? 

Is it Miami Dolphins All-Pro wide receiver Tyreek Hill? Or perhaps Philadelphia Eagles All-Pro wide receiver A.J. Brown? Maybe even new Dallas Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens? 

Last season, none of those players were the league’s most explosive on a per-catch basis. That title belonged to Indianapolis Colts wide receiver Alec Pierce. The 2022 second-round pick led the NFL with a yards-per-reception average of 22.3 after catching 37 passes for 824 yards receiving and seven touchdowns. Detroit Lions wide receiver Jameson Williams, who was 5 yards behind Pierce with a 17.3 yards-per-reception average, was the next closest player. That makes Pierce’s separation for the top spot in this statistic the second-largest in a single season in the Super Bowl era (since 1966), per Sportradar. 

Pierce had always been a nice downfield separator, averaging 14.5 yards per catch as a rookie and 16.1 yards per catch in 2023, but he credited an adjustment to how he mentally approaches the game of football as a driving factor for his breakout campaign in 2024. 

“I think it started with me changing my process just in terms of how I treated it every day and attacked each day,” Pierce told CBS Sports over the phone during Colts organized team activities (OTAs). “I think I kind of realized how important every play is, every practice. You’re basically under a microscope, you’re auditioning every single day, so I kind of realized and treated everything like it was the game because it really is the game. If you go out here, today we have an OTAs practice and if I go out there and I make a play on a route, they’re more likely to dial me up for the game and throw me that route and vice versa.”

* Per Sportradar

The 25-year-old’s production per catch was so outsized that he broke the 800-yard mark with under 40 catches, making Pierce the only player in the 21st century with that stat line. He’s only the 17th player to achieve that stat line in NFL history, something attributed to his own streakiness. Another factor is Colts quarterback Anthony Richardson’s propensity to go deep: he led the NFL in yards per completion (14.4). Naturally, the rollercoaster nature of Pierce’s historic season tested him. 

• Week 1 vs. Texans: three catches on three targets for 125 yards and a touchdown 
• Week 3 vs. Bears: one catch on two targets for 44 yards 
• Week 4 vs. Steelers: one catch for 9 yards on two targets
• Week 5 at Jaguars: three catches for 134 yards and a touchdown on three targets
• Week 6 at Titans: no catches on four targets
• Week 7 vs. Dolphins: two catches for 15 yards on five targets
• Week 8 at Texans: one catch for 11 yards on four targets
• Week 12 vs. Lions: one catch for 39 yards on four targets
• Week 13 at Patriots: two catches for 16 yards and a touchdown on six targets
• Week 15 at the Broncos: no catches on four targets
• Week 17 at Giants: six catches on nine targets for 122 yards and a touchdown 

“I think I really worked on my mental stuff. It is hard, some of the games you mentioned, only getting three targets. I know the one against Jacksonville I didn’t get a ball thrown my way until late in the fourth quarter,” Pierce said.

One trend about Pierce’s 2024 season that was consistent was his fourth-quarter production: 19 of his 37 catches in 2024, over half, occurred in the game’s final 15 minutes as did five of his seven receiving touchdowns. That takes mental fortitude to continue hauling downfield for three quarters and not mentally check out. Pierce didn’t break double-digit catches in any other quarter. His level of involvement in Colts’ games played a key factor in deciding Indianapolis’ weekly outcomes with the team playing an NFL-most 13 one score games in 2024. Indianapolis went 8-5 in those games, which was tied for the eighth-best win percentage in one possession games last season along with the NFC West champion Los Angeles Rams. 

Fantasy football rankings 2025: Sleepers, breakouts, busts from NFL model that said C.J. Stroud’s down year

Ryan Wooden

“I really kind of pride myself on just being able to stay locked in, stay in the game, stay focused because I pride myself on being there in crunch time. You can look at the stats,” Pierce said. “A lot of my production kind of comes late in games. … So I pride myself on making plays in big moments and that’s something I hope to continue to do.”

While Pierce relishes in being a field stretcher, he’s ready to be more than that — something he has made abundantly clear to coach Shane Steichen and his Colts coaching staff.  

“I’ve always been an explosive player, someone that they pushed the ball downfield to, and that’s what’s been big for me this offseason. I’m … just working on my communication with coaches and stuff like that because I’m just asking them what they want to see from me more because I know I could do more and I want to do more,” Pierce said. “I think communication clears everything. … I think they recognize there’s more in me. If I can just have one of those games that were kind of more dudes into just decent games, I think I’m up there numbers wise.”

What’s being asked of Pierce is to be better at running through the catch and be strong through contact, something he models off of the prime version of Odell Beckham Jr. That improvement is in the name of leaving his season high for catches of 41, which he accomplished as a rookie, well in the rearview mirror.

” A lot of times if you catch a slant route or something short, you see guys — I always just envisioned like Odell Beckham Jr. — he’ll run like a slant. He’ll run right through it, and he just runs 80 yards out the back door, 80-yard touchdown. That looks so easy, but he doesn’t lose any speed,” Pierce said. … “It’s always about just kind of cleaning up the top of routes, getting more efficient. I think I’ve come a long way in that. I always want to work on my play strength. Just kind of trying to be one that’s creating contact, initiating contact and not be the one that’s getting hit and pushed around. Be the bully out there.”

Despite wanting to do more in Year 4, Pierce’s production placed among the names of wide receivers who even the more casual football fan recognizes. He registered 161.4 Fantasy points in CBS Sports PPR scoring, which made him Fantasy football’s WR43, just ahead of Deebo Samuel (153.6 points) and just behind Pickens (161.4 points). 

“Yeah, I just want to make more plays in more levels of the field. Get more catches. That’s a big, big goal of mine. I know I only had 30-something catches the past couple of years,” Pierce said. “Definitely want to get some more catches. With that, it’s just being as efficient as I can be with the targets I’m given. So just making sure I’m getting on the jugs [machine], so I catch the ball, working on my hands. I want to be a consistent catcher.”

The biggest question for the Colts offense in 2025 is clear: who will be Indianapolis’ starting quarterback? The team drafted Richardson fourth overall in the 2023 NFL Draft to be the face of the franchise, but he’s only played in 15 of a possible 34 games (44%) in his short career. That’s why New York Giants castoff Daniel Jones was signed to a one-year, $14 million contract as insurance for Richardson, who missed mandatory minicamp this offseason with shoulder inflammation. 

“It’s not really that much of a change for me. I just want to try and be as consistent as I can for them because I know, especially when they’re splitting reps,” Pierce said. “So it’s just big on building our chemistry, and for me, what I can do to control that is make sure I get to the exact same spot, exact same depth as they want us to be. Being super detailed because that might be something they pick up on. Like ‘oh he might be here a little, he might run this route a little differently.’ … So to make things easier and seamless, I try to just be exactly on the details they want me to on the routes.”

Perhaps being sharper on the little things will lead to even bigger things for Pierce in 2025, the final year of his rookie contract. 

This news was originally published on this post .

Share on

email

Previous

trending_flat

Fantasy Baseball: Updated starting pitcher tiered rankings as we near halfway point of the 2025 MLB season

Sports

Next

trending_flat

Flamengo tem terceira maior posse e Botafogo lidera estatística defensiva; veja raio-X da 1ª rodada do Mundial

O Globo