The Steelers find themselves between a rock and a hard place with their star receiver. George Pickens has all of the talent you could ever want in a receiver. He has some of the best hands in the league and is a viable threat anytime the ball is near him.
Unfortunately, his talent has come at a supreme cost.
Despite entering his fourth season, Pickens has yet to mature as a player. He was extremely young when he entered the league, so early on you could excuse some of the outbursts. Those issues have never improved though, and now entering a contract year, the team has a clear choice to make at receiver.
Eligible for a new deal, Pickens will be eager to ink his massive payday, and rightfully so. The NFL is a hard business, and you are just one injury away from losing everything.
While expecting Pickens to play out his final year is fine on paper, I can’t see that ending successfully. Assuming Pickens even plays (I wouldn’t be shocked if he held out games), his antics may blow up as he feels disrespected by not receiving a new deal.
To me, the Steelers have two choices this offseason. Either they sign Pickens to a massive contract extension, or they need to trade him.
Steelers need to move on from George Pickens
I defended Pickens for as long as I could, but no matter what concessions have been made, he still acts like way too much of a diva to feel comfortable with giving him a new deal. I don’t see how a sudden influx of money will make those issues any better.
Pickens will likely command $30 million or more a season given the massive boom the receiver market has seen. Add in the guaranteed money that he will want and you would be locking yourself to an unstable player. Talent-wise, he is well worth it, but the off-the-field issues make him too much of a liability.
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Trading him now, before the draft and most of the offseason get underway, is the right move. You can recoup some draft capital and focus your sights on improving the receiver room in another way.
What would Pickens get on the market? I would assume a second-round pick plus something else, maybe a conditional pick in 2026. That seems like what the market value was for Brandon Aiyuk last year, and Pickens is a similar player.
If you make this move now, you get to have other teams plan around having Pickens on the team. They won’t go through the entire offseason planning elsewhere just to try and get Pickens shortly before the season starts.
For Pittsburgh, you can then open things up and look to add receivers wherever you can. You could add a viable veteran on the open market, target a top name in a trade, and/or use a top pick or two on a receiver in the draft.
Is this a massive risk? Absolutely, and losing out on Pickens's talent would be a tough pill to swallow. That said, you can’t bank on him suddenly maturing and being dependable enough to feel comfortable giving him a massive contract this year.
Now is the time to trade him. If you wait until after the draft, most teams will already be prepared to go into the season with their current crop of receivers. Wait until the deadline and who knows what Pickens's situation will look like. You get the most value for him now, and you protect yourself from a potential locker room problem given Pickens's antics.