Steelers insider addresses future of WR George Pickens

Some quickly assumed after the Pittsburgh Steelers agreed to a deal to acquire wide receiver DK Metcalf from the Seattle Seahawks and giving him a new five-year contract worth $150M that the Steelers could soon part ways with unsettled wideout George Pickens.

During a Wednesday appearance on Pittsburgh sports radio station 93.7 The Fan, Steelers insider Ray Fittipaldo of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette indicated that Pickens will ultimately determine if he stays with what's been the only NFL team of his career through at least the 2025 season.

"If George is a good soldier and he comes in and he works and he puts his head down and he wants to be a part of this thing, I think there will probably be a tendency to keep him," Fittipaldo said, as shared by Josh Carney of Steelers Depot. "But...what this Metcalf acquisition does, it gives [the Steelers] all of their options, right? So if they do want to trade George this week, they could do that. If they wanna trade George on draft day, they could do that. You'd probably get, I don't know about a [second-round draft pick], you'd probably get maybe a [third-round selection] in return for him."

Pickens has repeatedly caused headaches for Steelers head coach Mike Tomlin since the club grabbed the former Georgia Bulldogs star in the second round of the 2022 draft. After Tomlin said in early December that Pickens needed to "grow up," the 24-year-old allegedly showed up late for Pittsburgh's Christmas Day contest and was then accused of sending the Kansas City Chiefs a "come get me" message via an encounter that happened during a post-game interview. 

Pickens is entering the final year of his rookie contract and seemingly wasn't close to putting pen to paper on an extension with the Steelers before word of the Metcalf agreement went public. As much as the Steelers may want to have both Metcalf and Pickens as part of the offense later this year, Tomlin and Co. could decide to make an "addition-by-subtraction" transaction depending on how Pickens responds both publicly and privately to the Metcalf deal.