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Stephen Holder, ESPN
INDIANAPOLIS — The Colts on Tuesday placed their franchise tag on wide receiver Michael Pittman Jr., who set career highs with 109 receptions for 1,152 yards this past season.
The Colts and Pittman’s representatives had been in negotiations on a long-term extension in recent days and were endeavoring to reach a deal before Tuesday’s deadline for players to be tagged, but it came and went without a new contract.
“We love everything about him, and we want him to be a Colt,” coach Shane Steichen said Tuesday morning.
The franchise tag, worth $21.8 million for wide receivers for the 2024 season, will allow both sides to continue working toward a long-term deal. The tag greatly restricts Pittman’s ability to shop himself as a free agent when the 2024 NFL league year commences next week.
It is the first time the Colts have used the franchise tag since 2013, when they used it on punter Pat McAfee.
Nonexclusive franchise tags allow players to engage in negotiations with other teams, but the player’s original team retains the right to match any competing offer or is entitled to two first-round picks if a player joins a new team.
Pittman, who has had a different starting quarterback in each of his four seasons in Indianapolis, has been one of the more accomplished receivers in Colts history, with only five others — Marvin Harrison, Reggie Wayne, T.Y. Hilton, Dallas Clark and Bill Brooks — catching more passes than Pittman’s 336.
He was, by far, the Colts’ top target last season at 28.2%, which ranked 11th in the NFL. His 208 receptions since 2022 also ranks fifth in the NFL during that span.
Pittman, who turns 27 in October, missed a Week 16 game after he was placed in concussion protocol following a Week 15 hit by Pittsburgh Steelers safety Damontae Kazee, who was ejected and then suspended for the final three games of the season. Pittman was cleared from the protocol the next Friday, but he experienced a relapse of symptoms one day later after arriving in Atlanta for a game vs. the Falcons and went back into the protocol.
At 6-foot-4 and 223 pounds, Pittman provides a huge target for his quarterback and is a willing, and sometimes devastating, blocker in the running game. He has talked at length about the impending return of 2023 first-round pick Anthony Richardson to the Colts’ lineup, and the impact the young quarterback’s presence could have on the team’s passing game.