George Pickens has accomplished quite a lot so early in his career.
The Dallas Cowboys surprised us all this week by trading for wide receiver George Pickens. There are a lot of details to who he is and what he can and will provide, but ultimately there is zero doubt that he is extremely talented.
Pickens joins the Cowboys after playing his first three seasons for the Pittsburgh Steelers. Obviously what he has accomplished to date in the NFL occurred with them but we are assuming and hoping that things will translate to his new team.
How does Pickens’ time in Pittsburgh measure against anything else, though? Thanks to our friends at Stathead we are able to look at things through the lens of all history.
Let’s begin.
Here is how George Pickens’ first three years measure up against NFL history
One of the bigger talking points around Pickens is that he is going to be tremendous for the Cowboys from a down-the-field perspective. Dak Prescott has excelled at deep passes in the past when he had a player who could take advantage of them, Michael Gallup has been brought up a lot in the aftermath of the trade, and Pickens could certainly fall right in line in that sense.
Consider that Pickens is one of just 28 players across NFL history to average over 16 yards/reception (with a minimum of 150 receptions) through their first three seasons in the league. The list has names from all over the spectrum, to be fair.
It is worth noting that the name immediately before Pickens on this list is A.J. Brown and he will be apparent all throughout the next few marks we will discuss. But Brown is relevant to the point overall in that he, like George, was traded away after his third season with the team. The Philadelphia Eagles saw what Brown had done in the exact data set we are looking at here and felt like sending a first-round pick to get him was worth it (Philly also immediately gave Brown a contract extension).
That yards/reception mark was 16 and Pickens has cleared that mark on many an occasion to this point. He has 13 career games with at least 20 yards/reception, one of only 18 players since 2000 to have at least that many.
We are looking at some players who were really regarded as deep threats during their primes. Mike Wallace (a former Steeler as well who also appears in these searches a bit) leads the way with an incredible 20 total games, but other players like Torrey Smith and even Kenny Golladay show up as well.
While yards per reception is an important mark to look at we are also interested in the totality of certain statistics. Through his first three seasons Pickens has cleared 170 receptions and 2,800 receiving yards with 12 touchdowns to his name. He is one of only 60 players in league history to reach those thresholds in the first three years of his career.
This list is large, but the names are pretty fun to look at and imagine Pickens replicating the games of opposite of CeeDee Lamb. Speaking of Lamb you will note that he and his Club 88 predecessor Dez Bryant are both on this list. They are the only two players in Cowboys franchise history specifically to meet these marks.
When I shared this particular tidbit on social media it was pointed out to me that Pickens is on this list with significantly less targets than most everybody else.
Pickens has 293 targets to date so I added a filter of this exact same search while limiting it to players with 300 or fewer targets. George is one of only three players to still reach those numbers with the aforementioned Brown and Wallace also joining him.
The George Pickens trade certainly carries a bit of risk, but from an objective standpoint it is impossible to ignore that the Cowboys have landed an incredible player with stellar production to his name. If everything can truly work out then we all may look back on this with a round of applause for the front office.