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Plenty of teams didn’t want anything to do with George Pickens. He was a headache waiting to happen, causing problems in the locker room and on the sidelines. At least that was the narrative surrounding him.
Then, after the Dallas Cowboys missed out on drafting Tetairoa McMillan, they turned their sights toward a reclamation project and took a chance on Pickens being different in their building. It turns out, Pickens isn’t quite like the person we were told he was in Pittsburgh with the Steelers. Instead, the soon to be 25-year-old wide receiver thrived under the right circumstances.
Pickens had a banner year with Dak Prescott and the Cowboys offense recording 1,429 receiving yards and nine touchdowns, which led to a Pro Bowl and second-team All-Pro nomination. When CeeDee Lamb went down with his ankle injury in Week 3, Dallas needed to rely on Pickens as their No. 1 target, and that’s when things took off for him and the offense.
With Pickens entering free agency, the Cowboys find themselves in an all too familiar situation of needing to pay another star player. Recent history shows that it leads to drawn-out negotiations. Dallas gave up a third-round and fifth-round pick in exchange for Pickens and a seventh-round pick. All are totally worth the production from this year alone, but having long-term success would make Jerry Jones the ultimate thief in grading the trade.
All reports indicate Dallas will apply the franchise tag to Pickens as soon as they can, locking the All-Pro wide receiver in for a one-year, roughly $28 million deal. The goal would be to work out a long-term deal, but NFL Insider Ian Rapoport said the Cowboys could also consider a tag-and-trade option with Pickens. If that’s the case, is the trade value worth it in the end? It might not be.
Nick Harris of The Fort Worth Star-Telegram said on The Cross Chop Podcast with John Owning that the trade value of what Dallas could get in return for Pickens could be less than expected. He relayed the thoughts of an AFC scout on a trade and suggested a second-round pick with late-round pick swaps as the best case scenario, but indicated it may be just a third-rounder plus a fourth-rounder or something in that neighborhood.
This was just one non-biased opinion of a scout who works for a team in the AFC. Getting a second-round pick from a team could be worth it to move Pickens, but the Cowboys would have to have a stellar contingency plan in place to pull that off. Only getting a third- and fourth-round pick just wouldn’t cut it. Those picks wouldn’t replace what Dallas would lose on offense, and they would be asking a lot of Ryan Flournoy after he just had his breakout season.
Trading George Pickens solely to gain more draft capital doesn’t seem like the right move. Maybe negotiations will go smoother this time around. The Micah Parsons debacle from last year at least serves as a lesson for Dallas on what to avoid in negotiations with David Mulugheta, Pickens’ agent. Here’s the right move, especially if the trade value is this low: Dallas should apply the franchise tag and work out a long-term extension to keep Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb satisfied, thereby maximizing their current window while Prescott is at his career best for the next two to four years. This is the best path forward for Dallas.
What would it take in a pick package to get you to trade Pickens?