When the Pittsburgh Steelers are trying to trade one of their top receivers, a red alarm bell should be going off in the minds of every NFL decision maker. The outcome of these trades over the last two decades haven’t been pretty for the recipient teams. Will that end up being the same for the Dallas Cowboys and George Pickens?
“If the Pittsburgh Steelers got on the phone and said, ‘Hey, we got a wide receiver for you, do you know what I am saying?’ Click, not interested,” former NFL scout John Middlekauff said via his 3 and Out podcast on YouTube. “No one wanted this guy except Jerry [Jones], ’cause he’s like, ‘We’re gonna get lightning in a bottle here.’ Probably not.”
Sometimes the juice isn’t worth the squeeze for a player. Antonio Brown is an example of a player who was worth the squeeze for a period of time as he had arguably the best five-year stretch of any receiver in NFL history. While Pickens makes the most exciting catches of anybody I’ve ever watched, he has a 17-game average of 1,006 yards and four touchdowns. He has never even eclipsed the five-touchdown mark in a season.
With a young offense, the Steelers need their star players to be all-in. It isn’t conducive to success when your best player, and one of the most veteran ones, is showing up late for meetings and even games.
I think some of the Pickens bashing over the last couple years has actually missed the mark by calling him a bad teammate in the sense of creating issues in the locker room. Multiple teammates have gone to bat for him but being late to things and the post-snap penalties are plenty of reason to move on. Especially when you know he’s not a part of your long-term plan.
There have been several knee-jerk reactions that the Cowboys pulled one over on Omar Khan and the Steelers. I don’t think that is going to be the narrative when reflecting on this trade in one or two years from now.
“I would imagine that George Pickens is not gonna be on this team for that long, so to trade a valuable pick where you have literally found sweet players for cheap is a head scratcher,” Middlekauff said. “I think this is more Jerry being Jerry and trying to win the deal and go, ‘God, we got a steal’ No, they’re not really steals when making these trades. Anyone could have had this guy and clearly people were like, ‘Yeah, not that interested.'”
The Athletic recently reported that teams “laughed at” the idea of adding somebody like Pickens to their locker room. It does seem like there wasn’t a large market for his services despite his talent and youth, and the maturity issues appear to be the reason why.
DK Metcalf, who the Steelers traded a second-round pick for, has a history of some of the same on-field antics as Pickens with being emotional and costing his team via penalties. In his case, the juice is worth the squeeze as he is a player who has averaged eight touchdowns per 17 games played. He had back-to-back years with double digit scores. And he has never had a history of missing meetings or showing up late to games.
In recent years, the Steelers have turned Chase Claypool, Diontae Johnson, and George Pickens into second-, third-, fifth- and sixth-round picks.
“That’s really, really good business and the Cowboys are on the opposite end of this,” Middlekauff said. “When Mike Tomlin tells you, ‘I’m not interested anymore’ at that spot, I think you should listen.”
