Pickens is 'all-in' with the Cowboys
Mike Florio discusses George Pickens being at Dallas Cowboys mandatory minicamp and breaks down what it could mean for his next contract.
Video Transcript
As expected, George Pickens is at the Cowboys mandatory mini camp, and he spoke to reporters yesterday and, and he confirmed what was should have been clear the moment he accepted his franchise tender.
There never should've been a question that he was gonna miss mandatory mini camp.
Once he accepts the tender, he's all in.
Now, I don't know why his agent advised him to not show up for OTAs, because if the goal is to have the best season possible, let's be there for everything.
Let's take all the reps. Let's get ready to have the best season possible to either get tagged again or become a free agent next year, or maybe get tagged and traded.
But I think Pickens has realized, even though the market is 15 million per year higher than what he's gonna make this year, 27.298 million is a number no one ever would've expected George Pickens to be in line for this year.
Not when he was traded Before he was traded from the Steelers to the Cowboys.
He looked like a guy who, almost like a Chase Claypool.
Showed some flashes, but then it all fell apart.
That's what we felt like was gonna happen, and he didn't.
He was a second team all-pro, and I know CeeDee Lamb has the big contract, but as Sims has said many times on PFT Live, when he looks at the film, he sees that Pickens is the guy who's getting the attention, not Lamb.
Pickens is the one that they are more afraid of than Lamb.
So should he be being paid a lot more?
Yes.
Would anyone have ever dreamed he'd be making nearly 27.3 million this year?
No.
So you just gotta wrap your brain around it.
Accept the fact that you're in checkmate.
You can't get to the open market.
The Cowboys hold the cards thanks to the CBA.
It sucks, but that's what it is.
All you can do is go out and have the best season possible, and then put them in a box next year.
Because if you have a really great year, yeah, they'll tag you again, but they'll probably come to the same conclusion they came to with Dak.
Uh-oh, he's gonna leave next year.
We can't let him leave.
We've gotta get a deal done.
That's how Dak got his contract.
At the time, it was four years, 160 million, and as I said at the time, it's a better deal than the Patrick Mahomes contract because it forces the Cowboys back to the table.
And they've been back to the table.
That's how Dak got to 60 million per year, because of the four-year, $160 million deal that was done when the Cowboys were ready to tag him a second time and said, "Oh, shit.
We're screwed next year.
He's gonna walk away."
So it's smart for Pickens to be there.
It was the only move for Pickens to be there, and it's good news for Cowboys fans.
The better news would be Pickens signed to a long-term deal, and as I said, the moment Jerry Jones started talking about how George Pickens at Monday night game against the Raiders, it was an opera, it was a ballet, it was poetry.
If I'm CeeDee Lamb, I'm thinking, "Uh-oh, he's never said that about me."
They may have to choose between Pickens and Lamb at some point, and that point could come as soon as next year.
They're gonna try to ride out this tandem as long as they can, but there's a good chance, end of the day, Lamb is the one who's not there, and Pickens is the guy who gets the long-term contract.
We'll see how it plays out.
