Everyone wants to know who won or lost the George Pickens trade. The answer is unsatisfying but the reality is that it made sense for the Dallas Cowboys and Pittsburgh Steelers.
Pickens was traded from the Steelers to the Cowboys on Wednesday, with Dallas giving up a 2026 third-round draft pick and a 2027 fifth-round pick for Pickens and a 2027 sixth-round pick. Pickens had become a hassle for the Steelers, no matter how talented he was, and the Cowboys needed an upgrade at receiver. It made sense.
But there are some sides that won and lost in the trade. Here are the winners and losers from the Pickens trade:
WINNERS
George Pickens: Pickens’ time with the Steelers had run its course. The acquisition of DK Metcalf, who is practically an older version of Pickens, made it clear that Pickens was likely to be moved. Teams don’t often trade 24-year-old players with Pickens’ talent, but clearly Pittsburgh was tired of the distractions Pickens brought.
Pickens needed a fresh start and this is a perfect opportunity. If he has a quiet and productive season in a contract year that will pay him $3.6 million in 2025 — which he is set up to do catching passes from a good quarterback as the clear No. 2 option in the passing game — he’ll either get an extension from the Cowboys, get a lucrative franchise tag or hit the open market next offseason at age 25. It’s on him to change the perception surrounding him. He has what amounts to a clean slate to do that.
CeeDee Lamb and Dak Prescott: Lamb can carry an offense, but it’s not easy. There was simply nobody else on the Cowboys’ offense to be a threat to take attention away from Lamb. That all changes with Pickens. It’s also a good fit, with Pickens as an elite deep threat that can open things up for Lamb underneath.
It was a necessary move for Prescott too. A good way to throw interceptions is to force passes to the only reliable receiver in an offense when the defense knows it’s coming. The simple presence of Pickens helps Prescott in numerous ways.
George Pickens can win on the outside, which frees up CeeDee Lamb to operate from the slot.
Pickens also thrives on contested catches on back shoulders and stop routes. Routes that Dak Prescott LOVES to throw and something the Cowboys have missed since prime Gallup.
I get it.
— Nate Tice (@Nate_Tice) May 7, 2025
cost-wise for the Cowboys might be a round too rich for me + my iffiness with a Pickens big deal. But it freed them up to focus elsewhere on this year’s draft, which I really liked.
— Nate Tice (@Nate_Tice) May 7, 2025
Mike Tomlin: Tomlin has to wonder what he did to deserve his never-ending string of diva receivers. Antonio Brown, Chase Claypool, JuJu Smith-Schuster, Pickens … they’ve all brought their own level of headaches to the Steelers receiver room.
Pickens wasn’t on the block because he isn’t good enough. The Steelers could have played out this season with him, let him walk as a free agent and the compensatory pick likely would have been similar to what they got from the Cowboys. But the Steelers clearly wanted Pickens off the roster now. Not that Metcalf is always easy to coach, but at least Tomlin has one less issue to deal with.
LOSERS
Aaron Rodgers: No matter how much of a headache Pickens was, the Steelers’ receiver room is pretty thin after trading him.
It’s not that Rodgers would be surprised by the Pickens trade, but there’s still the reality that he won’t have many reliable targets to throw to this season. We can assume at this point that Rodgers will sign with the Steelers. But it’s probably not the ideal situation he was hoping for.
If Rodgers doesn’t sign, whoever the Steelers quarterback is will not have many targets.
Brian Schottenheimer: Tomlin has 18 years of head coaching experience and a borderline Hall of Fame résumé. And he clearly couldn’t handle Pickens anymore.
Pickens can be a challenge for any coach, in any market. How about for a rookie head coach for the most-watched team in the NFL? Schottenheimer is a first-time NFL head coach, and there’s no way he was going to have a quiet, normal season. That doesn’t happen in Dallas. But adding Pickens complicates an already complicated situation.
Maybe Pickens has a normal, quiet season and there’s never a problem for Schottenheimer to deal with. That seems unlikely. Schottenheimer is going to be tested this season. He won’t have the easiest introduction into the life of being Cowboys head coach.
Steelers’ timing: The Steelers announced their trade for Metcalf on March 13. At that point, it seemed clear they’d try to trade Pickens. They had six weeks before the NFL Draft began. And they couldn’t get a trade done before then.
It was shrewd by the Cowboys to wait it out until after the draft. Instead of their third-round pick going to the Steelers they used that pick to draft Shavon Revel Jr., a cornerback who slipped in the draft and should contribute right away. The Steelers wait a year to use the third-round pick they got.
The Steelers had motivation to get the deal done and not just play out the season with Pickens, and Dallas had to sense that. It would have been better for the Steelers to move Pickens before the draft. But they had to settle for trading him now.
