Alec Pierce has always been good at math.
His mechanical engineering degree from the University of Cincinnati – a degree he earned in three and a half years instead of the usual five years – speaks to the wide receiver's affinity for math and science.
Math, with its formulas and equations, is logical and predictable. It doesn't change, and the answers always make sense. It's not like writing a paper, Pierce said, where you're left to wonder what it was that you did to earn a certain grade.
"I just enjoy that it has a right answer," Pierce said. "It's right or it's wrong."
And yet, even with his appreciation for a clear-cut answer, Pierce certainly doesn't mind leaving his defenders questioning what they did wrong on the football field. Because no math can really explain the fact that when Pierce goes up for what should be a 50-50 jump ball, the odds are actually in the wide receiver's favor.
"With AP, we pretty much know that's like 99-1 jump ball right there," quarterback Anthony Richardson said. "We've got a lot of faith in him going up and getting the ball."
"I'm on that sideline, I see the ball get thrown or I see the coverage sort of go down in the manner the coverage goes down, and the ball is in the air and Alec is down there, I feel really good," Colts offensive coordinator Jim Bob Cooter said.
That doesn't sound like a 50-50 ball.
So, what is it that gives Pierce's team so much confidence in him?
Is it his athleticism, proven by a 41-inch vertical and 4.41-second 40-yard dash at the 2022 NFL Combine? Yes.
Is it the fact that he currently leads the NFL with 28.3 yards per reception, has 13 receptions for 368 yards and three touchdowns and seems to set new career-highs every few weeks? Of course.
But you can't quantify personality, and if you ask Pierce's teammates about him, you'll hear a lot more about the man underneath the pads and the helmet than you will about his stats.
"That boy, he's a playmaker," running back Tyler Goodson said. "Anything you ask him to do, he's going to do it and he's going to do it to the best of his capability."
"(He's) always wanting to be that guy to make a play, and kind of always been bought into the culture of his team," wide receiver Ashton Dulin, who has been locker neighbors with Pierce for the last two years, said. "And I think he fits in well with his personality and how he just acts around the game of football and everything that comes with it."
"He busts his ass every day," Colts wide receivers coach Reggie Wayne said. "No complaints, no nothing. He's been the ultimate pro. He does everything right."
Pierce's pro workout, before he was selected in the second round of the 2022 NFL Draft, was the only one Wayne attended that year. Pierce's rookie season with the Colts was Wayne's first year as the team's wide receivers coach; they've gone through just about everything together.
The six-time Pro Bowler and Super Bowl Champion saw something in the young wide receiver when Pierce was still playing in a Cincinnati Bearcats uniform, and in the three years Pierce has been with the Colts, Wayne has kept unwavering faith in him. And now, with quarterbacks who can cater to his skills as a deep threat in Richardson and Joe Flacco, Pierce has burst onto the scene as one of the best wide receivers in the league – just as Wayne expected.
"He's starting to be the Alec that I saw in Cincinnati," Wayne said. "And that's just getting confidence within himself. That's getting the quarterbacks that can throw it to him, get him downfield. We all know Alec's a deep threat, right, and we got quarterbacks that can do that."
Pierce's one-handed tip-turned-catch in the Colts' Week 5 game against the Jacksonville Jaguars, a play almost impossible to describe in words, was almost the perfect representation of who Pierce is; it highlighted his athleticism, his physicality and, above all else, his desire to win.
"That's kind of the way his play style is," Dulin said. "It's kind of crazy, but he's gonna get the job done no matter how it looks."
"He's taken a lot of pride in sort of working on that aspect of his game, and when the ball is in the air, making it his," Cooter said of Pierce's fighting for contested catches. "Sometimes it's a little bit of a mindset, where (it's) 'That ball is in the air, and it's mine. I'm going to go get that thing.'"
The case remains the same when Pierce catches a pass in stride and has the end zone in his sights: he's going to get there. It's just who he is.
"It's instinct," Pierce said with a small smile. "Just playing football."
Just playing football, but with the kind of competitiveness and athleticism that turns a 50-50 ball into a 99-1 ball. There's no equation for that one.
