The Cowboys have a predicament.
They want to keep receiver George Pickens, but they don’t want to pay him fair market value.
And so they plan to use the collectively-bargained device that gives each team the power to keep one free agent per year from becoming a free agent.
They know they’re taking a calculated risk by squatting on Pickens for roughly $28 million in 2026, when the top rate at the receiver position has moved to $40 million. He’ll have the right to stay away from everything in the offseason, training camp, and the preseason. He can show up only days before Week 1 and get the full amount of his franchise tender (unless the Cowboys rescind it).
Cowboys executive V.P. Stephen Jones addressed the situation with reporters on Monday, and he was asked about the potential complications of Pickens deciding to respond to the team’s reliance on the terms of the CBA by doing the same thing.
“It crosses your mind,” Jones said, via Todd Archer of ESPN.com. “I mean a lot of the guys we’ve tagged participated in everything, Dak [Prescott] leading the way. He played under two of them. He never missed anything. Hopefully that’ll be the case here.”
It’s different for a quarterback. Prescott knew he needed to be fully invested in order to keep his value high. Players at other positions can, and often do, take a different approach.
Pickens had a spectacular season in Dallas. Paired with a high-end quarterback for the first time in his career, Pickens generated 1,429 receiving yards and earned second-team All-Pro honors. If he were available to be signed by anyone, what would he get?
Thanks to the franchise tag, no one will know.
The Cowboys may be betting on Pickens accepting a massive spike in pay (he made $3.656 million in 2025) and having another big year in the hopes of doing it again. But the Cowboys could simply tag him again, at a 20-percent increase over his 2026 salary.
There’s another way that Pickens can play it. He can show up late, take his $28 million, and hold in — not practicing or playing due to a chronic issue from years of playing football. That’s what Micah Parsons did last year, and it worked.
The problem for Pickens is that he can’t sign a long-term deal if he’s traded after July 15. Pickens won’t be able to put the Cowboys in checkmate the way Parsons did.
And even if the Cowboys are willing to convert the tag into a long-term deal, the starting point will be two years of the franchise tag (like it was for Dez Bryant). But with the tag so far behind the market, that may not be good enough for Pickens.
Pickens’s best play may be to demand a trade the instant he’s tagged, and to stick to it until he gets a market-level deal from the Cowboys. He also can say he will not play under the tag, no matter what.
The Cowboys will bank on Pickens not walking away from $28 million for 2026. There’s a risk they’re going to be guessing wrong.