In early May, the Cowboys traded a 2026 third-round pick and a 2027 fifth-round pick to the Pittsburgh Steelers in exchange for Pickens and a 2027 sixth-round pick.
Over his first three NFL seasons, Pickens eclipsed the 800-yard mark in each while hauling in a total of 174 passes and 12 touchdowns.
Remember, he has done with unstable play at the quarterback position and did not have the luxury of having a guy like CeeDee Lamb on the other side of the football.
Realistic Expectations?
With that said, thus far it sounds like the issue with Pickens has been evened out a bit. The reason the Steelers moved off of him was because of the way he acted on the field and sometimes off.
So far, though, he seems like he is ready to shake those off and prove to everyone he isn’t that type of player.
If all of that stays to the side and Pickens can be just the player that is on the field, I think the Cowboys are going to have two guys over 1,000 yards.
Cowboys WR George Pickens sat next to Dak Prescott as they held court with reporters in waves talking life and college football for a full 45 minutes in the Cowboys locker room today. Funny, affable and cool.
Learning from the best pic.twitter.com/RFEC2XR4Kq
— Clarence Hill Jr (@clarencehilljr) May 29, 2025
Pickens had 59 catches for 900 yards and three touchdowns in 14 games for the Steelers in 2024 with below-average quarterback play, probably even worse than that.
The best year of his career came in 2023 when he totaled 1,140 yards and five touchdowns on 106 targets. He even led the NFL with 18.1 yards per reception.
Final Tally
This a bit early and many things can change from now until the start of the season in September, but I am going to see how close I can get to George Pickens finally tally at the end of the season.
With Lamb on the other side of the ball, I think his catches are going to take a hit just a touch.
I think his targets will fall closer to what he got his rookie season when he had 84. I will go with 90 targets, catching 58 of those for 1,010 yards.
Those are fair numbers I think, with how great Lamb is on the other side, Pickens is going to have games where he explodes if they don’t take him away, but 1,010 yards is fair.
Think about it like this, Tee Higgins, in the last full season he played with Ja’Mar Chase on the other side of the field in 2022, had 109 targets, caught 74 for 1029 yards.
Higgs has missed a handful of games the last two seasons, so it was hard to pull the numbers from 2023 and 2024.
