Cowboys' Stephen Jones reveals George Pickens' reaction to receiving franchise tag

As had been expected for some time, the Dallas Cowboys confirmed on Friday that they have used the franchise tag worth around $27.3M to retain the rights to wide receiver George Pickens for the 2026 campaign. 

Roughly 24 hours before the news went public, Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer said he had "hope" that Pickens would stay with the team and at least play on the tag through next season. It sounds like Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones isn't losing sleep over Pickens' response to being tagged. 

George Pickens may not be ready to request a trade from Cowboys after being tagged after all

Per Charean Williams of Pro Football Talk, Clarence Hill of ALL DLLS reported that Jones called Pickens on Thursday to inform the receiver of the club's intentions. 

"We couldn’t take the chance on losing him," Cowboys co-owner and executive vice president Stephen Jones told Hill about the decision to tag Pickens. "George was fired up, excited. He said, 'I don’t want to play anywhere but with the Cowboys.' That’s what we suspected. It was all good."

That's somewhat surprising news, as a previous report indicated that the Cowboys could tag Pickens and then look to trade him to a team willing to give him a multiyear deal that would include guaranteed money beyond the 2026 season. As for Dallas, The Athletic's Jon Machota has said that the Cowboys "seem fine with" keeping Pickens on the tag. 

Stephen Jones expands on George Pickens' reaction to being tagged

"He was fired up that he wasn't going to be going anywhere," Stephen Jones added about Pickens' reaction to the news during a Friday appearance on "The Rich Eisen Show," per the Cowboys' official website. "We all understand, too, economically, guys probably would prefer a long-term deal, but the franchise tag economically is not bad either. He was very fired up about his future with us. We felt like he wanted to be in Dallas. He certainly said that to Jerry yesterday. Jerry was on cloud nine that [Pickens] was going to be a Cowboy again."

As Patrik Walker noted for the Cowboys' website, the Jones family may be eager to sign Pickens to at least a short-term extension in order to decrease the salary-cap hit for 2026 attached to the one-year tag. The two sides now have until July 15 to sign a multiyear deal. Otherwise, Pickens will have to decide whether he will play on the tag or forfeit money by missing games.