Colts wide receiver Pierce activated off PUP list
Kyle Dvorchak unpacks the significance of Indianapolis Colts' wide receiver Alec Pierce being activated off the PUP list heading into the start of the 2026 NFL season.
Video Transcript
Colts wide receiver Alec Pierce was activated from the active PUP list.
Pierce early in the off-season got a PRP injection, then he undergoes ankle surgery.
This is all while he signs a massive four-year contract with the team.
Because of all the ankle issues, he misses the early off-season program.
Then he gets put on the PUP list at the start of training camp, and now we are at the end of training camp.
It is over.
We're heading into the final week of the preseason, and finally they have to make a decision on whether they want to leave him on the PUP list or activate him.
Activating him will spend a roster spot, which is valuable to NFL teams, but had they left him on the PUP list through Sunday's roster cutdowns, he would have been required to miss at least the first four games of the regular season.
And I will say the fact that they activated him does suggest that he will not miss all four of the first four games of the regular season.
If you look back, however, at last year, a good parallel in some sense to this is Chris Godwin, who was activated from the PUP list ahead of the regular season.
He did not appear until week four.
I do think at this point it's safer to say that we would expect Pierce to play before week four, but week one is not exactly a guarantee yet.
I think it's only that he will certainly play in September, and he's missed the entire off-season.
And last year, he played in such a specific, very successful role that if you were drafting him in fantasy this off-season, you did want that role to expand.
He was the first and only wide receiver of the past 20 years to rack up 1,000 yards with an ADOT over 20.
Field stretchers like Pierce just normally aren't that productive.
He is the exception to the rule, but you would hope they would mix him in a little more on the underneath stuff.
I don't know if he's not practicing at all in training camp, if we're not sure if he's ready for week one, if much of that happens.
I do think this news is good for Pierce, but it doesn't necessarily make him a target in fantasy drafts for me.
