Alec Pierce’s return, blitzing Lamar Jackson a…

1. What Alec Pierce did in his debut

The Colts hoped to get Alec Pierce about 40 snaps in Week 1, with the plan to be smart with their 26-year-old wideout after only about two weeks of practice prior to Sunday. He wound up playing 32 out of 54 snaps (59 percent).

Pierce was listed as limited in practice leading up to Week 1, and for a guy who’s played anywhere from 80 to 100 percent of the Colts’ offensive snaps in non-blowouts in his career, he remained somewhat limited in his season debut.

“We were really pushing to play Week 1 even if it wasn’t going to be perfect,” Pierce said. “Kind of understood that. I’m proud of the work we did with the training room staff and the sports science staff. They had a really good plan, and it wasn’t that limited, but it definitely just was rotating in and out (more than) I think I normally would.”

One factor here with Pierce’s snap share, though: Ravens linebacker Roquan Smith banged his facemask into Pierce’s hand in the first quarter, leading to Pierce going back to the Colts’ locker room for X-rays. Those came back clean, but Pierce was sidelined from about the 11-minute mark of the first quarter through the 10:15 mark in the second quarter.

Pierce and the Colts aren’t worried about any long-term effects from that collision, which occurred on Pierce’s first catch of the game. But Pierce said his hand was a little stiff after, and it impacted him later in the game on a third-and-seven late in the third quarter. Pierce ran an intermediate in-breaking route but couldn’t haul in quarterback Daniel Jones’ pass, with Ravens cornerback Nate Wiggins breaking it up.

Still, Pierce was mostly impacted by his lack of practice time leading up to the season. Pierce underwent surgery on his ankle/heel in late March, missed the entire offseason program and wasn’t activated from the PUP list until the Friday before the Colts’ final preseason game in August.

“Wasn’t my best,” Pierce said. “I definitely felt like I needed to knock a little rust off there. That’ll come with working with Daniel and getting more that timing down and stuff. That’s the biggest thing that was a bummer with the injury, I wanted to be back during August and get some of those reps.”