Colts wideout Alec Pierce receives controversial ejection after making contact with official during career day
- - Colts wideout Alec Pierce receives controversial ejection after making contact with official during career day
Chris Cwik January 4, 2026 at 10:20 PM
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Colts wideout Alec Pierce receives controversial ejection after making contact with official during career day
Indianapolis Colts wideout Alec Pierce was well on his way to shattering a handful of career-highs Sunday before being forced out of the game early. After nearly catching his third touchdown of the day, Pierce was ejected after making contact with an official.
The incident occurred with under two minutes to play in the third quarter. Pierce attempted to haul in a pass in the back of the end zone, but was pushed out of bounds by a Houston Texans defender. Pierce, looking for a flag, got up to talk to an official about the play. As Pierce extended his arm out behind the official, his shoulder bumped the official's arm. The ref immediately threw a flag, and disqualified Pierce from the rest of the game.
Alec Pierce has been disqualified pic.twitter.com/v5QiRjlQj1
— NFL on CBS 🏈 (@NFLonCBS) January 4, 2026
The broadcast seemingly disagreed with the penalty, with J.J. Watt calling it "harsh." Play-by-play man Ian Eagle threw it to former NFL ref Gene Steratore who noted, "It's not a lot of contact."
The ejection ended a career-day for Pierce, who hauled in four passes for 132 yards and two scores earlier in the contest. That was only two yards off his previous career-high and marked just the second time in his career Pierce scored multiple touchdowns in a game. Had he been allowed to keep playing, there's a decent chance Pierce would have exceeded his previous career-high of 134 receiving yards.
There's also a chance he could have helped the Colts win the game. After leading most of the way, the team coughed up a late lead, eventually losing the contest 38-30.
While he didn't get to realize that dream Sunday, he picked a tremendous time to post his best-ever game. Pierce is set to hit the free-agent market in the offseason, and stands to make quite a bit of money there. Though he's never had a 1,000-yard season as a receiver, Pierce has proven to be one of the game's best deep threats. He's led the NFL in yards per reception in each of the past two seasons.
Given Pierce's ability to get open deep, there's bound to be some teams that are convinced he could take a huge step forward in a good offense. Pierce hasn't had many opportunities to play with elite quarterbacks over his career, and could really benefit from joining a team with an accurate, deep-ball passer.
But that will have to wait until the offseason. Following Pierce's early exit in Week 18, the next time he'll take the field could come with a new team next year. If he can build off his career day — and his strong second half — Pierce could wind up being one of biggest free-agent additions of the offseason.
Source: “AOL Sports”
