The Colts have two key offensive pending free agents who they\u2019d like to retain going forward: quarterback Daniel Jones and receiver Alec Pierce. <\/p>\n
General Manager Chris Ballard said at his scouting combine press conference that Indianapolis would prefer not to use the franchise tag for either player. But it\u2019s an option if things don\u2019t work out before both players hit the open market at the start of the new league year next month. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not what we want to do,\u201d Ballard said. \u201cIt\u2019s a tool we have. It\u2019s not what we want to do, though.\u201d <\/p>\n
That\u2019s part of why this week at the scouting combine is so critical, as agents come to town and start figuring out what the market will be for those pending free agents. <\/p>\n
Ballard characterized discussions with both Jones and Pierce\u2019s representation as \u201cvery positive.\u201d <\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019ll continue to work this week and see if we can get something done,\u201d Ballard said. \u201cLook, when both sides are driven to get it done, it usually works out in the right way. I know four or five days doesn\u2019t seem like a long time, but it can be in these situations.\u201d <\/p>\n
Jones stabilized the QB position for the Colts after years of inconsistent play at that spot, completing 68 percent of his passes for 3,101 yards with 19 touchdowns and eight interceptions before suffering a torn Achilles<\/p>\n
Pierce, a second-round pick in 2022, has led the league in yards per reception over each of the past two seasons. He finished 2025 with a career-high 1,003 receiving yards and 47 receptions with six touchdowns.<\/p>\n
The Colts have until March 3 at 4 p.m. ET to determine whether or not they\u2019ll use the franchise or transition tag this offseason.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Colts have two key offensive pending free agents who they\u2019d like to retain going forward: quarterback Daniel…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":489560,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[63],"tags":[349,99],"class_list":["post-489559","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-nfl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489559","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=489559"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/489559\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/489560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=489559"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=489559"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=489559"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}