Steelers Now
George Pickens possesses the talent to be a No. 1 receiver in the NFL. With the Pittsburgh Steelers, he averaged 16.3 yards per reception over the past three seasons, tops among the 44 players with at least 2,000 receiving yards over that stretch.
Despite his explosive abilities, Steelers general manager Omar Khan sent Pickens to the Dallas Cowboys on Wednesday, adding a 2027 sixth-round draft pick in exchange for a third-rounder in next year’s draft and a fifth-rounder the following year.
Wave’s Bomani Jones had a simple explanation for the deal, which gives Dak Prescott another play-making wideout alongside CeeDee Lamb.
“The answer why is very simple — something wrong with that boy. I don’t know what exactly it is that is wrong with him, but something wrong with that boy,” Jones said during a Wednesday reaction video posted on YouTube. “You have seen the plays where George Pickens is running the route, it’s an interception on the route and instead of trying to tackle the person who has the ball, George Pickens is trying to fight the person who had been covering him.
“Why? Because something wrong with that boy. I’m not saying, like, it’s clinical. I’m not saying it’s got a diagnosis. I’m just saying something ain’t right. You be watching him play and you be like, ‘Hey, man, I don’t know what’s going on here, but something ain’t right.'”
Jones acknowledged Pickens’ talent, adding, “If all I did was show you clips of George Pickens, there are times where it looks like he is floating through the air, The Matrix type of shit.” Pickens totaled 2,841 receiving yards and 12 touchdowns on 174 grabs during his three seasons in Pittsburgh. He led the league with 18.1 yards per catch in 2023.
Jones believes the move is very Cowboys-esque, giving America’s Team yet another daily talking point.
“You can never forget, Jerry Jones made his money by driving off in the middle of nowhere, digging a hole in the ground and hoping that oil popped up,” Bomani Jones said. “That’s how he got to be a person whose name we know. … Now, George Pickens, he knows there’s oil in that hole. He is aware that there is oil there.
“There’s also some other stuff, like land mines. You know what I mean? But Jerry is like, ‘But if we can get that sweet oil without hitting one of those land mines, we could cash in.’ That’s why this plot of land is so cheap. They know it’s got oil in it, but they tired of getting blowed up. Not Jerry. Jerry love getting blowed up, or, at the very least, the excitement that comes from the chance of getting blowed up.”
This article originally appeared on Steelers Now: Analyst Explains Steelers Small Return for George Pickens: ‘Something Wrong with That Boy’
