Dallas Cowboys get George Pickens plot twist, and we should have seen it coming from miles away
The Dallas Cowboys kick off mandatory minicamp next week. Will star wide receiver George Pickens be in attendance after being franchise tagged by the front office?
When it comes to Dallas Cowboys football, it’s easy to get your hopes up. That’s true whether we’re talking about a regular season game, Super Bowl hopes, and yes, even mandatory minicamp attendance.
For a minute there, it seemed like wide receiver George Pickens and the Cowboys would get some smooth sailing when the team reports to mandatory minicamp next Tuesday. But the latest Pickens “quote” is certainly not promising.
Pickens non-committal to showing up to Cowboys minicamp
Cowboys insider Nick Harris from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram recently interviewed Pickens at a youth camp held in Corpus Christi Texas. Though the star receiver didn’t provide a single word in response, his answer was sort of clear.
“Pickens gave a shrug with an ‘uhhhh’ before a representative of his agency cut him off to say he would not be answering any more questions,” Harris wrote.
I am no behavioral psychologist nor do I want to be. But under a week away from minicamp, that doesn’t seem like the kind of answer you get from a player trying to attend. And it’s certainly a shift from what Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer said earlier in the week, indicating he expected Pickens at minicamp.
Now, it’s clear Schottenheimer’s messaging is that of a coach talking about mandatory practices. Of course he expects all players to be there. Last year, the Cowboys head coach said the same about Micah Parsons, and the latter did report. But that was an entirely different situation with an ongoing contract negotiation.
This time, Pickens and the Cowboys know an extension isn’t getting done in 2026 because Stephen Jones announced it to the world prior to the NFL Draft.
We should have seen this coming
Listen, we don’t know for sure Pickens isn’t showing up. But if his response indicates what we think it does, it’s honestly not a surprise.
Could he possibly benefit from showing up and preparing for another standout season? Yes.
Is he going to give the Cowboys a win after shutting down negotiations when it’s very likely he would be ready to go as long as he gets time in on training camp? Probably not.
I know it sucks to wait and wait (and we do this every year) but it’s starting to look like we’ll have a full holdout conversation again in late July when the Cowboys kick off training camp in Oxnard, California.