As had been anticipated for a while, the Dallas Cowboys confirmed on Friday that they’ve used the franchise tag value round $27.3M to retain the rights to extensive receiver George Pickens for the 2026 marketing campaign.
Roughly 24 hours earlier than the information went public, Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer said he had “hope” that Pickens would stick with the group and not less than play on the tag by means of subsequent season. It feels like Cowboys proprietor and common supervisor Jerry Jones is not dropping sleep over Pickens’ response to being tagged.
George Pickens is probably not able to request a commerce from Cowboys after being tagged in spite of everything
Per Charean Williams of Professional Soccer Discuss, Clarence Hill of ALL DLLS reported that Jones known as Pickens on Thursday to tell the receiver of the membership’s intentions.
“We couldn’t take the prospect on dropping him,” Cowboys co-owner and government vice chairman Stephen Jones instructed Hill concerning the determination to tag Pickens. “George was fired up, excited. He stated, ‘I don’t need to play anyplace however with the Cowboys.’ That’s what we suspected. It was all good.”
That is considerably shocking information, as a earlier report indicated that the Cowboys may tag Pickens after which look to commerce him to a group keen to provide him a multiyear deal that would come with assured cash past the 2026 season. As for Dallas, The Athletic’s Jon Machota has stated that the Cowboys “appear fantastic with” maintaining Pickens on the tag.
Stephen Jones expands on George Pickens’ response to being tagged
“He was fired up that he wasn’t going to be going anyplace,” Stephen Jones added about Pickens’ response to the information throughout a Friday look on “The Wealthy Eisen Present,” per the Cowboys’ official web site. “All of us perceive, too, economically, guys in all probability would like a long-term deal, however the franchise tag economically just isn’t unhealthy both. He was very fired up about his future with us. We felt like he needed to be in Dallas. He definitely stated that to Jerry yesterday. Jerry was on cloud 9 that [Pickens] was going to be a Cowboy once more.”
As Patrik Walker famous for the Cowboys’ web site, the Jones household could also be desperate to signal Pickens to not less than a short-term extension with a purpose to lower the salary-cap hit for 2026 hooked up to the one-year tag. The 2 sides now have till July 15 to signal a multiyear deal. In any other case, Pickens must determine whether or not he’ll play on the tag or forfeit cash by lacking video games.
