Kozora highlighted a few cases where you know, maybe Pickens is slowing down to fool the DB.
But even with those considered, he's being lazy. He's lazy when he's not going to get targeted, he's lazy blocking, and there's a few cases where you can definitely highlight him not being 100% on routes where he can be targeted. The big one for me is route where he's going from one side of the field to the other, where he'd probably not get the ball but he could really help the QB in a slow developing situation if he makes it. The one where he just walks off the line of scrimmage, that route. Penultimate play of the game where Fields targets him anyway but Pickens is nowhere near where he has to be, that route.
I'm asking this to everyone - right now, would you pay Pickens this summer?
I'm a no. He is so gifted and so good when he wants to be but he's not so gifted that he's irreplaceable and he goes haywire too often for me to want to pay him even before we consider him as a leader, the locker room, and the rest of it. As a third year pro, the odds of fixing it are slim and mostly hinge on him wanting to be fixed and, let's be honest, he mostly looks like he'd rather be somewhere else.
