Did Steelers Wait Too Long To Trade Pickens?

The football world woke up on Wednesday to one of the biggest trades of the offseason. After weeks of rumors, the Pittsburgh Steelers finally pulled the plug on the George Pickens experiment.

The Steelers traded him to the Dallas Cowboys for a 2026 third-round pick and a 2027 Day 3 pick swap. On its face, that’s fine value, especially for a player with little chance of receiving a long-term extension.

The rest of Pittsburgh’s offseason, though, shines the transaction in a different light. Rather than the blockbuster deal for Seattle Seahawks receiver DK Metcalf amplifying Pickens, giving him a co-star, the offense is left with the same problems that plagued its 2024 campaign – no long-term quarterback and just a single star on the boundary.

The Steelers didn’t add a receiver in the 2025 NFL Draft to replace Pickens, and still dealt him after the fact, leading to Mike Florio questioning the timing of the move.

“Common sense suggests that they tried, but that they couldn’t get what they wanted,” Florio wrote. “Given the loose rule of thumb that a pick in the current year translates to a pick one round higher in the next, they might have only been able to get a fourth-round pick for Pickens before or during the 2025 draft.”

We don’t know what anybody else offered for Pickens. It’s entirely possible that teams only had Day 3 picks for Pittsburgh. But it isn’t the price that has captured league-wide attention, it’s the timing.

For all the value in his return, it isn’t helping the team get better at receiver in 2025, keeping the Steelers in quicksand as it looks to elevate its offense.

“Regardless, as the Steelers seem to be adopting a load-the-cannon-now posture, not getting anything for Pickens until 2026 is odd,” Florio postulated. “It speaks to the very real possibility that the Cowboys were the only team that wanted to take a chance on a player who had become disgruntled in his current city — and who may not morph into becoming gruntled in his next.”

Florio's take is ... weird - especially because up until this deal going down he essentially called Dallas owner Jerry Jones a liar for claiming the Cowboys were working on a major trade.

Jerry was right.

Florio was wrong.

Pittsburgh has justifiably been criticized for the move, but it is rather telling that the front office waited until after the draft and opened the door for earlier 2026 picks. The Steelers can cut nearly every second-contract player on its roster without much penalty in 2026. There will be holes to fill, making those picks all the more necessary.

But the timing? It happened after the draft rather than during it because the two teams couldn't get together on the terms.

It's not that complicated.

In the end ...

If Pickens wasn't going to be on the next great Steelers team, trading him is reasonable, if not responsible. But going about it without backfilling the receiver spot has left the Pittsburgh faithful scratching its heads.