Dallas embraces possibilities for George Pickens' future, surprising speculation around his contract status. Three insider takes dissect the unfolding situation.
FRISCO - In a recent media visit with Stephen Jones, the Dallas Cowboys COO spoke very positively about the team’s plan to retain George Pickens, the Pro Bowl receiver who is eligible for free agency when the new league year officially begins on March 11.
“That’s just something we’ll have to work through,” Jones said, via Yahoo Sports’ Jori Epstein at the Senior Bowl in Alabama last week. “Obviously, we think George is going to be back and we can effectuate that. …’’
Except for Stephen’s use of the word “effectuate’’ (I didn’t know this was going to be a vocabulary quiz!), that all tracks with our reporting on the plan. On Nov. 27, I wrote, via a source, that Jerry Jones’ Cowboys are preparing to take the “easy path’’ and use the franchise tag, which would keep him in Dallas at a reasonable $28 million salary and block him from hitting the open market.
That guaranteed tag can be a placeholder (a decision on it is due March 3) while the two sides negotiate until July 15, at which point, without a new long-term deal, it locks in for 2026.
But Stephen’s full quote - and another chunk of new news - add to the intrigue here.
That full quote …
“That’s just something we’ll have to work through. Obviously, we think George is going to be back and we can effectuate that. But at the same time, we want to be open-minded to anything.”
“Open-minded to anything’’? Wait … what?
Three Fish Takes on what it all means …
1 - CLASSIC COWBOYS BUMPER-STICKER CLICHES: It’s conceivable that Stephen is simply reciting “open-minded to anything’’ by rote. Jerry does that a lot (“All In!’’) and his son quite naturally follows suit.
In a literal sense, “open-minded to anything’’ would mean Dallas could a) assertively outright sign Pickens to a massive market-level deal (let’s say, four years and $120 million), b) tag him and leave it that way while using 2026 to evaluate him further, c) engineer an unusual “sign-and-trade’’ that ships him away because he’s deemed too expensive or d) let him go free in exchange for a future compensatory pick.
Concepts a) and b) are conventional. Concept c) would be rare and tricky. Concept d) would be a disaster.
2 - WHAT THE FOOTBALL PEOPLE SAY: I’ve had conversations with guys on the coaching staff and guys in the scouting department. And as I’ve phrased it …
“If Jerry screws up and loses Pickens, these coaches and scouts here at The Star are going to have a building-wide aneurysm.’’
I’ll stick with that, as I’m comforted a bit by another Stephen quote.
“Talking to these defensive guys we brought in (during the coaching staff search), we were a pain for them,” Jones said. “They start talking about, ‘Oh my gosh, when we had to play you guys, that was a problem.’ They have to decide, ‘Hey, put your best cornerback on one and double the other,’ or do a lot of moving parts how they did it …
“Your offense caused a lot of problems.’”
That’s all about the pairing of Pickens with CeeDee Lamb in this Dak Prescott-led offense. I’m going to continue to assume that the Joneses will take the advice of their own football people - and now, of what might be a dozen other football people who interviewed for jobs here - and recognize the notable edge Dallas has with a chance to employ two of the 10 best wideouts in the NFL.
3 - “OPEN-MINDEDNESS’’ AND THE CAP: We now know that the NFL’s 2026 salary cap will officially exceed $300 million next season, settling somewhere between $301.2 and $305.7 million by the time we reach March 11.
(That’s a near-$100 million increase just in the last four years … so yes, business is booming.)
As a result, many have mistakenly assumed that it’ll now be easier for Dallas to sign Pickens. But that’s not the way this works.
First, we were already projecting the cap to jump to $295.5 million. So if it ends up at, oh, $302.5 million? That’s not a drastic-enough change to allow any real breathing room; if the Cowboys truly “break the bank,’’ as Jerry has promised, Dallas will end up “up against the cap’’ - as it should be.
But secondly, the cap isn’t just going up for Dallas. If you view this as “relief,’’ fine - but it means the other 31 teams get “relief,’’ too.
So it’s not just the Cowboys who now have “more room’’ to sign Pickens; it’s 31 other teams that do as well.
There is a bottom line here. If some team wishes to blow away Dallas with an unbelievable offer - they want to pay Pickens $30 million APY and they want to give the Cowboys a treasure chest of draft picks - then good on Stephen for being “open-minded.’’
But that’s a highly unlikely scenario, meaning that this is the rare case in which I actually hope the Joneses are just talking in bumper-sticker cliches before they get to the real work and … er, um … effectuate … the re-signing of George Pickens.