Steelers Now
The Pittsburgh Steelers have a big decision to make this offseason when it comes to wide receiver George Pickens. Pickens is entering the final season of his rookie contract, which is typically when the Steelers start the process of negotiating contract extensions with players they want to keep.
A lot of the conversation this offseason has surrounded whether the Steelers will want to extend Pickens, withs some citing his hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines, multiple personal foul penalties, and repeatedly showing up late for meetings, practices and games as reasons the team may want to move on from him.
To this point, the Steelers have repeatedly rebuffed trade calls for Pickens, including an in-depth conversation during the second round of the 2025 NFL Draft with the Dallas Cowboys. The Steelers have made it pretty clear that they don’t want to trade Pickens, despite the fact that they’re listening to offers.
What Pickens wants at this point remains unclear. He hasn’t spoken publicly since the Steelers traded for DK Metcalf this offseason, bumping Pickens down the team’s pecking order at receiver. Does he want to be in Pittsburgh long term? If so, what kind of contract is he looking for? All we have right now is speculation.
But we can fairly accurately calculate the market value of Pickens’ contributions on the field.
When Diontae Johnson was negotiating his last contract with the Steelers in 2022, I did some research about what NFL teams value in wide receiver contracts, and discovered that the best fit was traditional yards gained.
I went ahead and updated that research for 2025, using a sample of the top 20 contrast (and ties) by AAV signed by a wide receiver this offseason, from the $40.25 per year that the Cincinnati Bengals gave Ja’Marr Chase to the $4 million annually that Tyler Lockett, Marquez Valdes-Scantling and Demarcus Robinson all got.
When comparing the scale of salaries to yards per catch, yards per target, yards and PFF grade, the traditional counting stat has the highest R-squared. Because there are some players returning from injury in this year’s sample, yards per game does even better.
Last season, Pickens averaged 64.3 yards per game. That puts him in the upper class of our sample. Chase (100.5 yards per game), Chris Godwin (82.3 yards per game), Tee Higgins and Davante Adams (75.9) and Metcalf (66.1) averaged more.
All of those players were also among the most highly compensated, with Chase setting the non-quarterback record at $40.25 million per year, Metcalf becoming the most expensive player in Steelers history at $33 million per year, and Higgins ($28.75m), Adams and Godwin ($22m) all making more than $20 million per season.
So where does that leave Pickens? According to the sample, his 64.3 yards per game should translate to an average annual value on his contract of just about $25.7 million per season. So that would line up to about a three-year, $77 million contract.
Now, there’s obviously going to be some variance....
