MOMENT-IN-THE-MAKING: GEORGE PICKENS JERRY MAGUIRE

The league fined George Pickens $90k in 2024, with the Steelers’ dollar amount perhaps forever TBD—team fines and even some league numbers often do not become public knowledge. Combined, league and team reportedly hit GP north of $200k in 2023. 

Unnecessary roughness. Unnecessary conduct.

Showing up late and pulling no punches. 

Ironically, nothing hit his wallet after these snow angels. 

If since-deleted replies claiming that he forced his way out of the 412 are true, then Pickens has firmly put himself in a position with zero excuses—with every future dollar on the line. 

(dallascowboys.com)

I was on the field before and perched above the Sunday Night Football endzone during the Steel City’s 2024 Week 7 introduction to Russell Wilson when Pittsburgh welcomed the New York Jets to town. Here’s the NFL posting every catch from Pickens' 111-yard night. Watch the first one—a classic Russ Moon Ball™—that gets better with every replay when you realize a) Pickens makes the catch one-handed because 2) he’s being actively interfered with and III) the look on future Gold Jacket Guy Davante Adams’ face is everything. 

Across the handful of grabs, you get a peek at many of the things that can make Pickens elite. Raw play speed to win deep—even against much smaller players like Brandin Echols, himself a 4.35 Pro Day guy. Twitchy burst to win right off the line mixed with route savvy to hand-fight without creating OPI while leaving plenty of room to the sideline and rare game elevation to simply Moss dudes—all on the same play. Concentration to stay with it when the pigskin seems to defy the laws of physics. And his Gumby-jointed fight for every yard. 

It's that last part that can help Pickens most, regardless of scenario. 

Gone must be the lack-of-effort lapses that plagued his time in Pittsburgh, bringing Cowboys legend Terrell Owens—no stranger to volatile play warped further by contrived controversy—to X on Christmas Day. 

Have the Cowboys found Lamb’s running mate for the next half-decade? We’ll break down CD and GP against the league’s best wide receiver duos in the coming weeks. One thing that would make them unique is their shared playing traits—among most current and classic all-time pairings, it’s usually one guy who’s considered possession with another who’s a physical freak. Both CD and GP have the potential to hit paydirt on any play. 

Is this a one-year rental? Gavin Dawson tackled that sentiment a few days ago. We’ll continue to ask the questions surrounding ideas ranging from locking him up before he breaks out to letting him walk and picking up a compensatory 3rd Rounder. A year of good behavior multiplied by leveraged all-in effort may still give most teams pause regarding anything long-term—especially when it comes to guaranteed money. 

And whether this morphs into a world where Pickens finds his long-term NFL home or sets himself up to be paid like something resembling his WR1 talent-specific profile somewhere else, the only path to a lucrative second contract is pure production. 

Unless Brian Schottenheimer & Co. have been zombie-dancing through the teaching points that brought us here, Pickens should be escaping Pittsburgh route tree Hell on planet Earth—even with Russell Wilson the Steelers’ Pickens plan only propelled his petulance. 

And that’s before you explore their week-to-week allergy re: the middle of the field. 

Or doomscroll through the comments that follow this video, as comprehensive in its reasons and excuses as perhaps any thread out there. The only element missing: Pickens’ final “effort” on Jourdan Lewis’ facemask as the game clock hit triple zeroes.  

But you don’t get 7M views on lazy routes unless the whole world knows what you’re truly capable of. 

Obviously every week won’t look like a race to the record book for both guys, but this is the no-you-go-first ceiling for either player based on game flow. And when you watch Lamb run away from dudes it sure looks a lot like Pickens (from Kenny Pickett) when he’s actually got the full field at his disposal (from Mason Rudolph). 

And now there’s two of them, side by side or split opposite and/or in motion for the first time. 

Examples of people asking Grok to project 2025 for Pickens keep popping up on the timeline something like 61-920-6 against his three years in Pittsburgh and 17-game career averages of 62-1006-4. 

Cowboys Nation has great memories of the rangy Alvin Harper opposite Michael Irvin—those heights and weights get real interesting real fast, near dupes of GP and CD, respectively—and the headline here says it best. A look inside Harper’s rise to legitimate threat includes back-to-back seasons over 20 yards per catch—leading the league at 24.9 in 1994 with 8 scores on just 33 receptions. Pressing deeper, he also only posted a 41.8 catch percentage that season, and only topped 50.0 once (53.7 in 93). Pickens sits just a tick below 60 through three fascinating seasons despite a steady diet of go balls and back shoulder fades aka the lowest percentage fruit on the route tree. 

Look, Lamb is gonna eat. He’s also capable of eclipsing 100 catches on even less than last season’s 152 targets in 15 games. But even if Pickens popping the lid off Gavin Dawson’s cloud-and-cover calamity—freeing CD to continue churning HoF counting stats in a shallow ball symphony where he thrives in a world more statistically relevant to his AP1 2023 (181/135/1749/13.0/12 and a 74.6 catch rate 6 full points over his second-best season and 5.7 over his career 68.9), make no mistake: 

There’s still going to be plenty on the passing plate—and more than one path to a huge payday for Pickens. 

In fact, it's scary to think how good this offense could be when you process 2023 and what Brandin Cooks (81/54/657/12.2/8 with a 66.7 catch rate) and Michael Gallup (57/34/418/12.3/2 on 59.6) gave you after CD. Then-second-year Jalen Tolbert was barely worth mentioning (36/22/268/12.2/2 on 61.1). 

Yet: Jake Ferguson earned Pro Bowl honors on 102/71/761/10.7/5 and a 69.6 catch rate.

While: Cowboys running backs delivered 82 catches for 513 yards and 2 scores. 

Looking back at the dynasty years and Harper bursting into the open field has us reminiscing. Cowboys fans the world over are left to play what-if games about, say, Troy Aikman running a modern offense like Joe Burrow—652 attempts, 460 completions, 4918 yards (289.3 per), and 43 touchdowns all led the league in 2024. 

Nostalgia took us to the 90s Cowboys’ chief rival and the preceding dynasty built in San Francisco. Here’s where data can be fun, even for talk-and-type guys: 

John Taylor raced to 60-catch, 1,000-yard seasons opposite Jerry Rice while also contending with Roger Craig (into Ricky Watters) and Tom Rathman and Brent Jones, including 1989 when Montana and Young were so efficient they barely threw it 30 times per game. And the 49ers’ run game was nothing to write home about, either. Craig and Rathman both averaged 3.9 yard per carry and tallied 7 touchdowns between them for the Super Bowl champs. 

If Joe Cool on a season-long heater of an AP1/OPOY/MVP regular season ahead of one of the greatest playoff runs ever is running too hot of a comp, then how do you feel about Amon-Ra St. Brown and Jameson Williams last year? 

St. Brown, the undersized alpha, brought in 115 catches on 141 targets (81.6) for 1,263 and 12. Williams, the deep ball demon, hauled in 58 on 91 (63.7) for 1,001 and 7 despite missing two games for a PED violation (after missing four the season before on a gambling suspension). And there was still room for Sam LaPorta to grit through an injury-plagued 60 on 83 (72.3) for 726 and 7—plus Sonic and Knuckles to stagger opposing defenses further with 88 combined catches on a ridiculous combined 87.1 catch rate, 858 yards, and 4 scores. 

Maybe you don’t see a historic run just because George Pickens forced his way to Arlington. 

And maybe you’re still scarred from how Dallas imploded against the Packers in the Wild Card following that feed-CD 2023 where they paced the league in scoring. 

And maybe, there’s the peak ceiling of still-untapped potential as Pickens enters his age-24 fourth season—the final one he stands to see a single dollar from anyone. 

An all-time great who posted catch rates consistently lower than Pickens has to date: 

Randy Moss. 

I said typed it. 

He only needed 69 receptions (on 124 targets) to produce 1313 yards (19.0 YPC) and a league-leading 17 touchdowns as a rookie. And the 17.7 and 18.7 YPC that followed his AP1/OROY 1998 came with the Vikings feeding Robert Smith (and Leroy Hoard) and, of course, Cris Carter. 

Though this Newbear-you’re-insane-take fades based on Moss and Carter being hand-carved members of the NFL Hall of Fame and perhaps starts to cede counting stats when we assume 100-plus targets for Ferguson in a potential breakout year (and/or the combined respective contributions from Ferg and Schoonmaker while those Vikings teams utilized Andrew Glover and a M.A.S.H. unit of tight ends at relatively half that rate), looking back it’s also worth thinking about the likes of who was chucking those bombs. 

Jeff George (rifle-armed; relative journeyman) and Randall Cunningham (out of the league, retired, in 1996; reinvented in a career year off the bench in 1998 after Brad Johnson went down) sitting at or even below 60 percent completion percentage while Dak is career 66.8 and capable of pushing 70 (69.5 in that glorious 2023). Factor in Daunte Culpepper taking the reins in 2000 and Moss and Carter had three different starting QBs in three seasons. 

1998-2000 SEASON AVERAGES (16-GAME SEASONS) (GAMES ACTUAL) 

CARTER (48/48)       141 TGT 88 REC 62.4 Catch Rate 1,175 YDS 13.4 YPC 11 TD

MOSS (48/48)           130 TGT 75 REC 57.9 Catch Rate 1,388 YDS 18.5 YPC 14 TD       

VIKINGS QBs (40/48)           316 CMP 519 ATT 60.9 PCT 4,040 YDS 35 TD 18 INT

2022-2024 SEASON AVERAGES OVER 16 GAMES (GAMES ACTUAL) 

LAMB  (49/51)          160 TGT 112 REC 70.0 Catch Rate 1,404 YDS 12.5 YPC 9 TD

PICKENS (48/51)        98 TGT   58 REC 59.4 Catch Rate 947 YDS 16.3 YPC 4 TD 

DAK (37/51)                          370 CMP 549 ATT 67.4 PCT 4,044 YDS 30 TD 14 INT

Hell, the exact midpoint of Moss during that epic three-year stretch to open his HoF run and George Pickens with Mitch Trubisky, Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph, Justin Fields, and Russell Wilson playing the George-Cunningham-Culpepper rotating role would look like this over 17 games in 2025: 

PICKENS                     121 TGT 71 REC 58.7 Catch Rate 1,240 YDS 17.5 YPC 10 TD

Take 10 percent off—which would be just 3 catches and 54 yards more than Pickens’ established three-season arc—and assume his to-date career catch rate and YPC. Allow for schemed red zone opportunities to escalate and convert. 

                                    109 TGT 65 REC 59.4 Catch Rate 1,060 YDS 16.3 YPC 9 TD

Splitting the catch rate difference between Cooks and Gallup in 2023 would push Pickens to 63.0. His worst YPC is 15.3. 

                                    109 TGT 69 REC 63.3 Catch Rate 1,056 YDS 15.3 YPC 9 TD 

Class Pickens up to Lamb’s lowest catch rate of 65.8. Take into effect that was also Lamb’s highest YPC campaign. Keep Pickens at 17.5 from the original Moss midpoint. 

                                    109 TGT 72 REC 66.1 Catch Rate 1,260 YDS 17.5 YPC 9 TD 

Game-breaking stuff on the Americas Team scene that would surely have him cashing checks. And Pickens does bring that career 16.3 YPC to Dallas, including a league-leading 18.1 in 2023, despite everything listed above and tweeted into the ether. 

Underdog set Pickens’ receiving yards line at 950.5 for 2025. 

One more time for the realists in the back: 

Pickens’ 17-game averages over three years (averaging 16 games played per): 1,006. 

With that JV system. With that collection of drafted-over-whom?!, run-first, and washed quarterbacks. Opposite Diontae Johnson—a talented route runner who struggled with drops—before being shipped to Carolina after quitting and bitching his way out of town, becoming an instant headache in Baltimore before being suspended and then released, and making a scene in Houston before being waived. Johnson is currently reunited with Pickett in Cleveland. 

It's also worth noting here that Johnson was a 169-target, 107-catch Pro Bowl receiver in 2021—the year before Pickens arrived. Opposite Johnson in Ben Roethlisberger’s last hurrah? Chase Claypool, who parlayed a 4-touchdown effort in his fourth career game into a PFWA All-Rookie team nod and a nickname—Mapletron—that would prove impossible to live up to. Claypool, initially guilty of premature flexing and blaming just about everyone else for his mistakes, spiraled through a bizarre series of trades (at one point putting him on three teams in 365 days) and false starts. Ultimately, he went from TMZ to the Canadian Football League. 

To say nothing of Juju Smith-Schuster TikTok-ing his way from the record books to the receiving end of the next generation of fast risers forcing him to fight for his NFL life entering what is still somehow just his age-29 season in 2025. The Patriots abruptly cut Smith-Schuster in 2024 despite owing him $7 million fully guaranteed before he caught on again as a depth piece in Kansas City. 

Surely, you’re aware of how #CTESPN founder Antonio Brown’s saga played out. 

Pickens is entering the fourth and final year of his rookie deal with The Star on his helmet hellbent on proving that Pittsburgh was the problem. 

Which brings us back to another connection to Moss and Carter. 

2001 marked their fourth season together in Minnesota, Carter’s 12th with the team, and 15th overall. When Culpepper went down, a 5-7 season on the brink ended with four consecutive losses. Spergon Wynn—he of the infamous Brady 6—actually started two games. Moss was still a few years away from the Lambeau Moon and Carter just a lost year in Miami from being done with the game. More pointedly, Carter was more than a decade removed from the substance abuse that nearly derailed his pro career before it had a chance to take HoF shape—it wasn’t until his seventh year in the league (age-28 season) that Carter produced the first of eight-straight Pro Bowls. 

Moss continued leaping into the record books in his first two seasons without Carter, somehow outrunning all the baggage that caused 19 teams to pass on him (including the Cincinnati Bengals twice) in the 1998 1st Round. 2006—his age-29 season—would find Moss broken in Oakland, battered and bitching enough that the league believed his best years were behind him. The Patriots snatched Moss for a 4th Rounder and his age-30 season was 2007—and we all know how that went. 

The point for Pickens: 

Like countless diva dominators before them, Moss and Carter were considered “bad dudes” before they became bad dudes. 

It’s a fascinating character study with drama behind door number two in the Dallas Cowboys quarterback room—if anonymous sources out of New England are believed to be true. 

If Joe Milton is “not a good dude,” being called upon to step in and step up should Dak’s hammy need a little more time upfront or a week of extra rest at any point during the Cowboys’ 2025 gauntlet, one doesn’t have to squint too hard to see Cunningham or Culpepper rocking and firing. 

You may look at George Pickens and see everything that’s wrong with kids these days. 

Brian Schottenheimer took a top-down view at the podium during OTAs. 

“The way we practice and the way I act at practice, my father is looking down from Heaven going, ‘What are you doing? That’s not how you practice.’ But my father also coached a long time ago. And the type of athletes and the type of young men that we are dealing with has changed. I believe that it’s the coach’s responsibility,

first and foremost, to create a great practice environment. If we don’t have energy and we’re not into it and we’re not running around and we’re not talking shit, then the players aren’t going to be able to do that. Because they’re going to follow our lead,” he said. 

Schotty then cited Pete Carroll as a significant influence on carrying himself that way. 

At the risk of exploring Moss and Carter or whatever deep ball-possession pairing you prefer from yesteryear through Brian Thomas, Jr., and Travis Hunter—turning this Hemingway novel of a blog into an Odyssey that would make Chase Claypool blush—it’s insane that what we’re talking about is a silly-gifted (shoutout, Chris Long) 1,140-yard receiver (2023) just trying a little harder unless he wants his career to be shorter than Wes Welker. 

In Pittsburgh, the standard is beyond stale. 

In delivering on his pre-draft promise that substantial trades were in the works, Jerry Jones is giving George Pickens 18 weeks to get that bread.