An awful lot went wrong for Pittman in 2024, including, but not limited to, Anthony Richardson's inability to complete passes. Josh Downs' emergence also played a role, with the second-year slot man getting nearly as many targets as Pittman despite playing two fewer games. Then there was the matter of playing through a back injury from Week 5 onward. There was even discussion of placing Pittman on IR or shutting him down, yet he ended up closing out the season with 181 yards in Weeks 17-18 while catching passes from Joe Flacco. Believed to have avoided offseason surgery, Pittman will again be part of a WR room with three other Day 2 draft picks (he was a second-rounder in 2020), joined by Downs, Alec Pierce and Adonai Mitchell. The last two may not matter much for Pittman's volume projection, but Downs certainly does, and rookie tight end Tyler Warren adds a third candidate for short/intermediate targets. There were plenty of those targets for both Downs and Pittman when Flacco was under center last year... but not enough targets for either when Richardson got the nod. Richardson will never be a favorable QB for possession receivers, even if he improves drastically, which means the best-case scenario for Pittman's 2025 fantasy value might be another lost season for the Colts, with Daniel Jones throwing a bunch of short passes for a subpar team the way Flacco did last year.
