Empoleon8771
Registered User
I mean yeah, that sounds about right
DK will just replace Pickens and the Woods/Wilson duo will just replace Van Jefferson.
OT: The Pittsburgher Thread: Post Draft - Still dont need no QB
- Thread starter Zirakzigil
- Start date
I mean yeah, that sounds about right
DK will just replace Pickens and the Woods/Wilson duo will just replace Van Jefferson.
I mean yeah, that sounds about right
DK will just replace Pickens and the Woods/Wilson duo will just replace Van Jefferson.
Yup. Oh good god Jefferson actually got 40 targets last season. What an atrocity.
- Mar 28, 2025
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I just saw the news. Good value for the Steelers, but I'm a little confused. Are the Steelers going all-in or retooling? You don't trade your #1 receiver without having someone to step up (I don't see that happening) or you just drafted someone (they didn't). How do you take a DT / RB in the first / second rounds when you know Pickens is leaving?
bigdaddyk88
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- Apr 21, 2019
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Add they are still hoping Rodgers wants to play for them.
Instead of actually trying to see what the team looks like with DK and GP we are on a hamster wheel
bigdaddyk88
Registered User
- Apr 21, 2019
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Is bigdaddy finally turning on the team?! Biggest plot twist of the day.
Empoleon8771
Registered User
Dulac: Steelers Won't Trade For WR After Dealing George Pickens
The Pittsburgh Steelers dealt WR George Pickens to the Dallas Cowboys, leaving a void behind DK Metcalf in their receiver room. But don’t expect the team to look to the trade market to replace Pickens. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Gerry Dulac said in his weekly chat that the team won’t trade...
steelersdepot.com
So what WR are they going to trade for?
Retooling.
Not that Pickens was the #1 receiver any more though. Metcalf took his lunch money. And we'll see how it plays out, but it feels like they're hoping Roman Wilson is the step up guy as he was meant to be last year with the offence.
bigdaddyk88
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- Apr 21, 2019
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Wilson has nothing to do with GP. Ca3 and RW are the slot guys. They don’t have wr 2 on the roster again
bigdaddyk88
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I honestly don’t understand their reasoning behind this groundhog hamster wheel. Eagles won a sb with 2 wr making 25 million plus. Cincy is paying 2 wr 25 million minimum. We have no money on offense a rookie qb in 26 the entire o line on rookie deals next season
Factorial
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- Oct 7, 2019
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Sounds like they had no intention to sign him to another contract and the worry was he'd "hold in" for new contract this summer which would be a massive distraction.
I'm glad to see him go and they need to stop drafting head cases like him. The warning flags were there.
I'm glad to see him go and they need to stop drafting head cases like him. The warning flags were there.
I don’t think it has much to do with not paying another WR. It has everything to do with not paying Pickens. After what he did in the Cowboys game and then reportedly showing up to games late and whatever, he wasn’t gonna get paid.
I get Metcalf is probably gonna do a lot of the same frustrating stuff, but he hasn’t done it here yet.
bigdaddyk88
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- Apr 21, 2019
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ok he seems like he was ok with playing this season out and betting on himself that’s what the tag is for. It’s may they didn’t need to trade him yet.
Because he's an awful f***ing professional and they wanted rid of him the moment they could do so in a sensible way. It's that simple.
Also, re Wilson... you can repeat until you're blue in the face your opinion on him, but the fact is the team planned on him playing a significant role last season until injury happened, and so far there doesn't look like a lot of reason to think they're not planning on it again. Think they're stupid if you will, but that's what the roster currently says.
But they wanted to. You've given all the reasons why they could have kept him, but they didn't want to and the reason for that is pretty obvious. They wanted him to get his diva ass the hell away from there.
And yeah, they were happy spending 30m on Metcalf. Think a little on what Pickens is that they'd rather have Metcalf than Pickens.
bigdaddyk88
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The guy couldn’t get the playbook last season but sure they are counting on him.
They turned down trades for GP on draft night so that doesn’t make sense
They reportedly turned down a 4th round pick for Pickens. They waited and got a third. Simple as that. If Dallas offered their third on day 2 of the draft he would have been traded then.
I wish they would have drafted a WR knowing they were definitely getting rid of Pickens, but that’s a different discussion.
- Mar 28, 2025
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I completely forgot about Metcalf. Ok, the situation doesn't look as bad as I had thought.
Yeah, it's basically back to square one, only with a little draft capital lost because of Pickens' rep for being a headcase.
bigdaddyk88
Registered User
- Apr 21, 2019
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We just replaced a headcase wr with another and handed him 30 million as a high end wr 2
THey are always trying to compete. You have to assume it is or was Rodgers. With Metcalf and Pickens you had a chance to have a legitimate offense. Now, you do not, unless they make more moves.
Even still, if they aren't trying to compete this season they need to trade Watt and Minkah to get capital to draft Manning next season. There is no reason to keep them at this point if they are just punting seasons.
- Mar 28, 2025
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Contract aside, Metcalf is a beast in comparison to Pickens. That's definitely an upgrade. The ideal situation would be to have both, but I just don't see the Steelers sinking that much money into the receiving room; especially with the QB situation still not solved.
MrBrightside
Registered User
Kaboly: A Steelers trade that made no sense and all the sense in the world
Mark Kaboly / Steelers Correspondent
For The
@PatMcAfeeShow
PITTSBURGH — When Mike Tomlin feels it's time to move on, you better believe that it’s time to move on.
It quickly got to the point where the squeeze wasn’t worth the juice for the most tenured head coach in North American professional sports, so, well, it was time, even though the timing couldn’t have been worse.
Less than two weeks after not drafting a receiver that would seemingly indicate that the Steelers were going to ride out the final year of George Pickens' rookie deal, the Steelers shipped the talented yet mercurial Pickens to the Dallas Cowboys.
The Steelers got a third-rounder next year and a late-round pick swap in 2027, thus ending a once-promising future in Pittsburgh for another high-round receiver.
It’s a move that could’ve been timed out much better and makes little sense in terms of how the Steelers have went about constructing their offseason roster, especially with Aaron Rodgers still very much in play, but when it is time to go, it’s time to go regardless of talent, worth and compensation.
Make no mistake about it, Tomlin – who has gone out of his way in the past to defend Pickens -- is the one who decided that the Pickens rehabilitation project needed to end a year early.
The ultimate decision had very little to do with general manager Omar Khan (although he signed off on it, too) and of course it was OKd by team owner Art Rooney II.
Pickens didn’t ask for a trade. It was the Steelers who decided to ship him to the Cowboys.
A report out of Dallas, not long after the trade was officially announced, said that Pickens isn’t interested in an extension this year and wants to prove his worth in the final season of his rookie deal before hitting free agency.
If that applies in Dallas, surely that would’ve applied with the Steelers.
And good for him and good for the Steelers and Tomlin.
Now, it might not be good for the Steelers’ offense and coordinator Arthur Smith, but maybe there is something to the narrative of addition by subtraction being thrown around since the trade was announced.
If so, Pickens fits the bill.
The Steelers finally realized that it wasn’t worth the potential distraction from a proven ‘me-first guy’ who has been known to take off plays, not wanting to block for his teammate because he might get hurt, wear eye black with cuss words on them in front of a national televised night game, routinely getting into scuffles with opposing players, and showing up late including to the Christmas Day game against the Chiefs.
Just imagine the stuff we don’t know about with Pickens, yet Tomlin was always there to massage away the distraction.
It is difficult to win a championship, let alone games, for an organization with players like Pickens.
Saying that, this draws a line in the sand now or at least reinforces the line that has been set for a few years now.
The Steelers have pretty much overhauled their roster over the past few years in the way of jettisoning the ‘difficult’ players and putting more of an emphasis on football-loving, good humans.
The decision makers might disagree with that, but malcontents have been replaced by players who want to be part of the team.
If you don’t want to be part of the Steelers, then goodbye. This has happened at many levels of the organization since the end of the 2023 season.
They traded Kenny Pickett after he voiced his displeasure over the signing of Russell Wilson. They traded Diontae Johnson after a myriad of incidents, including a locker room scuffle with Mitch Trubisky and later with Minkah Fitzpatrick, giving up on plays, and criticizing officials.
Chase Claypool was traded after some me-first stuff, Chuks Okorafor was released the first chance the Steelers got after the tackle was benched during the 2023 season for insubordination.
And even Najee Harris, to a lesser degree than the others, was a victim as he wasn’t even offered so much as the fifth-year option to return, and they let him go to the Chargers this offseason.
If the Steelers are not suddenly making a concerted effort to weed out the bad seeds and replace them with known good guys, then it’s a great coincidence.
What makes this one a little more palatable, yet still head-scratching, is that the Steelers traded for DK Metcalf in the offseason and have more upside in their receiver room with Calvin Austin III, the recently signed veteran Robert Woods, and last year’s 84th overall pick, Roman Wilson.
“You need more than one receiver in this league …,” Khan said at the Annual League Meeting in March.
Moving on from the mercurial Pickens seemed like a plausible course of action after dropping a franchise-record $150 million on Metcalf that all but anointed him the unquestioned No. 1 receiver on the depth chart heading into the season and beyond.
Many outside the organization assumed that would signal the end of Pickens’ time with the Steelers.
For reasons that spanned that it would now make Pickens expendable to recoup the second-round pick they gave up in the trade to acquire Metcalf, down the list to eliminate any possible distraction that might come along with Pickens playing on a lame duck contract.
The Steelers denied that every chance they got. They were interested in putting together a roster that included Metcalf and Pickens and seeing where it took them.
They never had any inclination to extend him this year, and Pickens was willing to play it out.
"I've talked to (Pickens) a decent amount this offseason,” tight end Pat Freiermuth told me last month. “GP's a great guy, he's good to have in the locker room. Obviously, stuff happens on the field, but that's just part of football and being a competitor. He cares, he tries a lot, he works hard. He's a hell of a talent as well.”
Not long before that, Tomlin threw support Pickens' way while comparing Pickens and Metcalf.
“They’re both downfield capable, but they're different people,” Tomlin said. “We'll figure that out, but that's not a problem as I see it. These guys want to be significant reasons why we're successful, guys that have the talent to do so, I'll stand in line for those issues.”
Something changed Tomlin’s mind between then and now. It’s either that or he’s a pretty good liar.
The only thing that can be criticized about this trade is the timing and I know, that’s a big one.
Not a bad word would be said if this happened before the draft, but if a fourth-round pick turned into a third-round pick because they held off, then that’s a win, too.
The Steelers and Tomlin are sending a clear message: Get on board or get out. Or as he has routinely said: “We want volunteers, not hostages.”
Tomlin may have finally realized that his trite volunteers-not-hostages quip wasn’t effective without consequences.
This consequence might hurt them in the short term, but it very well could be a blessing, especially during next year’s quarterback-rich draft, and they have 12 picks to move up and get one.
The Steelers aren't better today than they were yesterday.
That's indisputable.
But short-term misery could lead to long-term success.
Mark Kaboly / Steelers Correspondent
For The
@PatMcAfeeShow
PITTSBURGH — When Mike Tomlin feels it's time to move on, you better believe that it’s time to move on.
It quickly got to the point where the squeeze wasn’t worth the juice for the most tenured head coach in North American professional sports, so, well, it was time, even though the timing couldn’t have been worse.
Less than two weeks after not drafting a receiver that would seemingly indicate that the Steelers were going to ride out the final year of George Pickens' rookie deal, the Steelers shipped the talented yet mercurial Pickens to the Dallas Cowboys.
The Steelers got a third-rounder next year and a late-round pick swap in 2027, thus ending a once-promising future in Pittsburgh for another high-round receiver.
It’s a move that could’ve been timed out much better and makes little sense in terms of how the Steelers have went about constructing their offseason roster, especially with Aaron Rodgers still very much in play, but when it is time to go, it’s time to go regardless of talent, worth and compensation.
Make no mistake about it, Tomlin – who has gone out of his way in the past to defend Pickens -- is the one who decided that the Pickens rehabilitation project needed to end a year early.
The ultimate decision had very little to do with general manager Omar Khan (although he signed off on it, too) and of course it was OKd by team owner Art Rooney II.
Pickens didn’t ask for a trade. It was the Steelers who decided to ship him to the Cowboys.
A report out of Dallas, not long after the trade was officially announced, said that Pickens isn’t interested in an extension this year and wants to prove his worth in the final season of his rookie deal before hitting free agency.
If that applies in Dallas, surely that would’ve applied with the Steelers.
And good for him and good for the Steelers and Tomlin.
Now, it might not be good for the Steelers’ offense and coordinator Arthur Smith, but maybe there is something to the narrative of addition by subtraction being thrown around since the trade was announced.
If so, Pickens fits the bill.
The Steelers finally realized that it wasn’t worth the potential distraction from a proven ‘me-first guy’ who has been known to take off plays, not wanting to block for his teammate because he might get hurt, wear eye black with cuss words on them in front of a national televised night game, routinely getting into scuffles with opposing players, and showing up late including to the Christmas Day game against the Chiefs.
Just imagine the stuff we don’t know about with Pickens, yet Tomlin was always there to massage away the distraction.
It is difficult to win a championship, let alone games, for an organization with players like Pickens.
Saying that, this draws a line in the sand now or at least reinforces the line that has been set for a few years now.
The Steelers have pretty much overhauled their roster over the past few years in the way of jettisoning the ‘difficult’ players and putting more of an emphasis on football-loving, good humans.
The decision makers might disagree with that, but malcontents have been replaced by players who want to be part of the team.
If you don’t want to be part of the Steelers, then goodbye. This has happened at many levels of the organization since the end of the 2023 season.
They traded Kenny Pickett after he voiced his displeasure over the signing of Russell Wilson. They traded Diontae Johnson after a myriad of incidents, including a locker room scuffle with Mitch Trubisky and later with Minkah Fitzpatrick, giving up on plays, and criticizing officials.
Chase Claypool was traded after some me-first stuff, Chuks Okorafor was released the first chance the Steelers got after the tackle was benched during the 2023 season for insubordination.
And even Najee Harris, to a lesser degree than the others, was a victim as he wasn’t even offered so much as the fifth-year option to return, and they let him go to the Chargers this offseason.
If the Steelers are not suddenly making a concerted effort to weed out the bad seeds and replace them with known good guys, then it’s a great coincidence.
What makes this one a little more palatable, yet still head-scratching, is that the Steelers traded for DK Metcalf in the offseason and have more upside in their receiver room with Calvin Austin III, the recently signed veteran Robert Woods, and last year’s 84th overall pick, Roman Wilson.
“You need more than one receiver in this league …,” Khan said at the Annual League Meeting in March.
Moving on from the mercurial Pickens seemed like a plausible course of action after dropping a franchise-record $150 million on Metcalf that all but anointed him the unquestioned No. 1 receiver on the depth chart heading into the season and beyond.
Many outside the organization assumed that would signal the end of Pickens’ time with the Steelers.
For reasons that spanned that it would now make Pickens expendable to recoup the second-round pick they gave up in the trade to acquire Metcalf, down the list to eliminate any possible distraction that might come along with Pickens playing on a lame duck contract.
The Steelers denied that every chance they got. They were interested in putting together a roster that included Metcalf and Pickens and seeing where it took them.
They never had any inclination to extend him this year, and Pickens was willing to play it out.
"I've talked to (Pickens) a decent amount this offseason,” tight end Pat Freiermuth told me last month. “GP's a great guy, he's good to have in the locker room. Obviously, stuff happens on the field, but that's just part of football and being a competitor. He cares, he tries a lot, he works hard. He's a hell of a talent as well.”
Not long before that, Tomlin threw support Pickens' way while comparing Pickens and Metcalf.
“They’re both downfield capable, but they're different people,” Tomlin said. “We'll figure that out, but that's not a problem as I see it. These guys want to be significant reasons why we're successful, guys that have the talent to do so, I'll stand in line for those issues.”
Something changed Tomlin’s mind between then and now. It’s either that or he’s a pretty good liar.
The only thing that can be criticized about this trade is the timing and I know, that’s a big one.
Not a bad word would be said if this happened before the draft, but if a fourth-round pick turned into a third-round pick because they held off, then that’s a win, too.
The Steelers and Tomlin are sending a clear message: Get on board or get out. Or as he has routinely said: “We want volunteers, not hostages.”
Tomlin may have finally realized that his trite volunteers-not-hostages quip wasn’t effective without consequences.
This consequence might hurt them in the short term, but it very well could be a blessing, especially during next year’s quarterback-rich draft, and they have 12 picks to move up and get one.
The Steelers aren't better today than they were yesterday.
That's indisputable.
But short-term misery could lead to long-term success.
Factorial
Registered User
- Oct 7, 2019
- 1,709
- 1,874
A sportswriter for the Dallas Morning News isn't worried about Pickens nonsense:
No mention of his refusing to block, giving up on plays, fighting with fans, etc.
No mention of his refusing to block, giving up on plays, fighting with fans, etc.
Risky or not, George Pickens’ playmaking ability is exactly what Dallas Cowboys need
With CeeDee Lamb and Pickens on the roster, Dallas has elevated the talent around Dak Prescott.
www.dallasnews.com
- Mar 28, 2025
- 310
- 587
Cowboys media has had decades of practice polishing turds.A sportswriter for the Dallas Morning News isn't worried about Pickens nonsense:
Risky or not, George Pickens’ playmaking ability is exactly what Dallas Cowboys need
With CeeDee Lamb and Pickens on the roster, Dallas has elevated the talent around Dak Prescott.www.dallasnews.com
bigdaddyk88
Registered User
- Apr 21, 2019
- 3,958
- 1,137
DK is capable of running 2 routes really well and was never the wr 1 in Seattle. He had nfl QBs throwing him the ball. He complained about targets and when the oc didn’t do what Lockett and him suggested against a team who was sitting on routes and call double moves he shut himself off from the OC. Seattle finally had enough of him.
