Alec Pierce’s long-awaited debut as the centerpiece of the Colts’ passing game is still on hold, and the delay is already shaping the way fantasy managers are approaching him.
Indianapolis put Pierce on the active/physically unable to perform list when training camp opened in late July, and the team had already made it clear that was the likely outcome. Pierce had a cleanup procedure on his left ankle in March, just after he agreed to a four-year, $114 million extension that made him the richest free-agent receiver in NFL history and the player the Colts intended to build around after trading Michael Pittman Jr. to Pittsburgh.
The important detail here is that active/PUP is not the same as a season-ending designation. Pierce can be activated anytime during the preseason once the Colts’ medical staff clears him, and there is no forced deadline tied to that move. That gives Indianapolis control over the timing, but it also means Pierce is still waiting on the ankle to clear the standard the team expected when it committed that money in March.
Pierce had originally aimed for a four-to-six-month recovery window after the surgery, which placed his return somewhere between July and September. Camp began in late July, and he still wasn’t ready to go, so he is now running against the latter part of that timeline with the opener getting closer.
The ankle issue did not appear overnight. Pierce dealt with soreness in 2024 and 2025 before it got bad enough late last year to require surgery.
He first tried a platelet-rich plasma injection in January, but when that failed to solve the problem, he and the Colts moved forward with the procedure in late March. Reporting from James Boyd of The Athletic also noted that Pierce has received at least one more PRP treatment during rehab, and the team has not disputed that.
That recovery matters because Indianapolis did not hand him $114 million just to keep him as a deep-threat specialist. Pierce led the NFL in yards per reception in each of the past two seasons and finished 2025 with 47 catches for 1,003 yards and six touchdowns.
Even with that production, his career average of 74 targets a year is far below what a true No. 1 receiver usually sees. The Colts are paying for a much larger role, with the expectation that he’ll clear 100-plus targets.
Right now, though, the receiver room looks thin without him. Josh Downs, Ashton Dulin and Nick Westbrook-Ikhine sit behind Pierce on the depth chart, and none of them is a direct replacement for the vertical element he brings. Every practice he misses also means fewer reps with quarterback Daniel Jones, who is managing his own return from a torn Achilles and has said he expects to be ready for Week 1.
Shane Steichen has not put a date on Pierce’s return, and the Colts have said that once he is cleared they’ll ease him back into practice instead of tossing him straight into full team work. That leaves open the possibility that even if Pierce gets activated soon, he could still enter the season with limited camp and preseason reps.
While Pierce waits, another major contract story is taking shape in Kansas City, where Kenneth Walker III signed a three-year, $43.05 million deal with the Chiefs this offseason. Walker arrives with some headline value attached, including the Super Bowl LX MVP label - though that honor came with the Seattle Seahawks, not Kansas City. He rushed for 135 yards and caught two touchdowns in Seattle’s win over New England before hitting free agency and landing with the Chiefs on a deal that made him one of the five highest-paid running backs in the league by average value.
The fit is intriguing because of what Kansas City has been on the ground. The Chiefs finished 25th in rushing yards in 2025 and have not had a 1,000-yard rusher since Kareem Hunt in 2017.
They did use a rookie pick on Nebraska’s Emmett Johnson this spring as depth, but Walker clearly enters as the lead back by the way the roster is built. That’s a sharp turn from the committee setup that limited both Isiah Pacheco and Hunt in recent seasons.
The question now is how much that role will actually translate in Andy Reid’s offense. Kansas City has long leaned on the pass, and Walker’s track record adds another layer of uncertainty: he has finished no better than 18th in fantasy points in a full season and has missed multiple games in three of his four NFL years.
The contract says the Chiefs want him to change the shape of their offense. Training camp and the preseason will show whether that commitment holds once the snaps start getting divided up around Patrick Mahomes.
For Pierce, the next checkpoint is simple: any update on when he’ll come off PUP. For Walker, the early camp split between him and Johnson will tell the story of how seriously Kansas City plans to lean on its new back.
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