BYE BUY BY GEORGE PICKENS

BYE GEORGE! That’s the appropriate headline from the 412.  

Pack your bags, chunk the deuces, don’t let the compensatory third rounder Pittsburgh would’ve received anyway for letting you walk after the 2025 NFL season get stuck in your cleats on the way to playing Robin next to CeeDee Lamb’s All-Pro Batman in the slot.

@PickensBurgh may have won Twitter/X as both the trade news and the wondrous account’s reason for being broke.

(AP Photo/Jeff Dean)

In the ensuing weeks, nearly every big-name veteran free agent wide receiver has been linked as a potential replacement opposite Pittsburgh’s new $132 million dollar man, DK Metcalf. Ben Roethlisberger made headlines with the type of leading-question-as-quasi-team-leak—“Was he a bigger headache than we knew?”—that Steelers insider Mark Kaboly ostensibly answered, reporting that enough of “the right people” in the Steelers locker room were done with Pickens. The team even upped the ante for clicks and grins, with rumors swirling around their blockbuster interest in Chris Olave. 

Pickens, for his part, denied the Mother’s Day Instagram missile that AI must have fired while he was leaving on a jet plane.

BUY GEORGE? That’s the aggregate subplot from changing zip codes.

Paired with a penchant for bullying college cornerbacks that foreshadowed his flagrant on-field antics as a pro, a spring ball ACL injury that Pickens channeled Wolverine’s healing factor to return from and help spark a National Championship victory as a junior at Georgia created a pair of red flags that pushed him to the second round of the NFL draft.

Leading up to the May 7th trade, the prospect of playing out the fourth and final year of his rookie contract in true prove-it-or-lose-that-extension fashion left both local Pittsburgh and national media experts scrambling to toe tap around a potential Pickens hold-in or hold-out that somehow loomed larger than Aaron Rodgers actively holding the team hostage until the ayahuasca wears off. The topline tension was magnified not just by the recent guarantees made to Metcalf, but by the Steelers very public courtship of Brandon Aiyuk one offseason ago.

The Cowboys are planning to let Pickens play for his future—begging questions about whether a coveted third-round pick is worth the price of a caution-taped one-year rental—and the player’s camp has stated that Pickens prefers to show that he’s a top wide receiver before negotiating. With Dak Prescott entrenched as the star among stars, the smart money should be on Pickens thriving in an environment where the most notable game of musical chairs is locker room assignments instead of over-drafted, first-round-bust signal callers that plagued his awe-inspiring yet awe-WTAF-man peaks and valleys in the Steel City.

Dallas, for their part, believes the opportunity to find Lamb’s running mate for the next half-decade is worth the gamble.

BY GEORGE. That’s the minced oath used to express surprise, excitement, and/or emphasize the moment in a less-offensive manner than a full oath or curse word.

Never one to mince words, Pickens affirmed during last year’s exit interviews that he had seen signs of growth with the Pittsburgh offense “for sure” from his first season in black and gold when the Steelers were trotting out a glorified high school offense on Sundays under offensive coordinator Matt Canada.

The follow up question came faster than the 4.47 40 Pickens blazed at the NFL combine:

Does that make you optimistic going forward?

“Uh, nah.”  

Pittsburgh’s collective sigh of relief actually arrives from—for the first time—knowing exactly where George Pickens is going to be. Gone are the routes he alternately freelanced and dogged, the yellow flags and fines he notoriously earned, the arrival times he reportedly ignored.

Dallas is banking on the flashes in between.

As George Pickens trades Mitchell Trubisky, Kenny Pickett, and Justin Fields in for Dak Prescott, he can strut to game-breaking stat lines like 4-195-2 and 7-131 in must-win games when Mason Rudolph was spinning with the 2023 season on the line.

BY, GEORGE. Open bleeping always.

Pickens was fined twice in 2024’s Week 5 showdown between the storied franchises—once for the f-bomb scribbled across the bridge of his nose, once for the DB’s facemask he ragdolled after catching just three balls as the clock ticked down on another excruciating loss.

In 2025 with the Cowboys, Pickens starts his second life.

More than a change of scenery, more than having a QB only one season removed from a 2nd Team All-Pro nod, Pickens is no longer WR1. The irony? That may be exactly what he needs to play like one. 

In addition to the aforementioned contract talks apparently tabled for now regarding Pickens, Dallas has extensions to explore with Micah Parsons, DaRon Bland, and Jake Ferguson—and there is only one franchise tag.

When it comes to dollars and sense, Pickens has put himself in position to become a problem…for all the right reasons.