Tyler Warren — Week 1: A Nine-Yard Touchdown and Two Two-Yard Catches
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
Warren caught three of five targets for thirteen yards, and nine of the thirteen were the touchdown — first and nine at the Baltimore nine, short middle, with ten thirty-two left in the fourth. The other two catches went two yards each on second and eighteen and second and thirteen, and the two incompletions came on second down. He also drew an eleven-yard pass interference call that started the touchdown drive in a 41–23 loss to the Ravens.
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Tyler Warren's touchdown was the fourth quarter's first Colts score. First and nine at the Baltimore nine, 10 32 left, Indianapolis down 38 to 16: Daniel Jones, shotgun, short middle, three yards in the air, nine yards to the end zone. +1.7 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and it came one snap after Alec Pierce's 23-yard catch to the nine. The drive had started at the Indianapolis 26 with a throw to Warren that fell incomplete and a defensive pass interference call on Malaki Starks that moved it 11 yards, and the play-by-play records that as no play, so it lives outside the stat line.
Inside the stat line: five targets, three catches, 13 yards, one touchdown, −0.6 expected points on the targets. The two catches that were not the touchdown were two yards each, and both were on long second downs deep in Colts territory — second and 18 at the Indianapolis eight with three 17 left in the first, right after a sack, and second and 13 at the 12 with 10 16 left in the half. The first was followed by a third-and-16 run and a punt, the second by a third-down incompletion and a punt. The two incompletions were second and one at the Indianapolis 27 with one 11 left in the half, 13 yards in the air, after which Jonathan Taylor was stopped on third and one; and second and six at the Baltimore 39 with eight 46 left in the third. No third-down targets at all. A declined illegal-shift penalty on him on that third-and-16 run is the only other mention outside the stat line and the interference call.
Five targets was third on the Colts, behind Pierce and Keenan Allen at six each, and ahead of Taylor and Josh Downs at four. Three came before halftime and two after, on 19 14 Colts pass plays respectively. 23 air yards on the five targets; only the one deep second-and-one throw went past 10 yards in the air.
Back in June the preview's read on Warren was a TE5 rookie season — close to nine points a game over 17 games — on the kind of volume-and-target role that tends to carry forward. Sunday the targets were there in count, five of 33, and the yards were not, 13 of a hundred 66. One game does not decide whether that is the role shrinking or a defense taking away the short middle, and the play-by-play cannot tell the two apart. Indianapolis is at the Chiefs on Sunday night the twentieth.
_Data via nflverse._
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