Football
Few doubt that George Pickens is going to have a good first season with the Dallas Cowboys. But with CeeDee Lamb already a target-eating monster, just how big a year can Pickens have? At least one football writer thinks it could be enough to send Pickens to his first career Pro Bowl.
The Cowboys would love to see several members of their 2025 roster reach their first Pro Bowl, as it would likely coincide with a successful season for the team as a whole. However, with many key players already having gone at least once, even a strong overall year could yield mostly repeats. Of those still looking to debut in the NFL’s version of an all-star game, Pickens certainly makes sense as a lead candidate.
In a recent exercise of picking the most likely first-time Pro Bowlers from each team, Kevin Patra of NFL.com chose Pickens for Dallas. He gave the following reasons:
“CeeDee Lamb remains the clear WR1, but there is room for another 1,000-yard receiver in Dallas. When he’s on, Pickens remains an elite talent with the ability to make jaw-dropping catches and leave corners in his dust. The issue for him in Pittsburgh was never skill, it was consistency — he had more games with less than 40 receiving yards (18) than he did games with 80-plus (14). Now that he’s playing a complementary role to Lamb, we just might see the best out of Pickens. If the boundary weapon makes a few big plays a game, as he did during camp, he’ll put up numbers. Dak Prescott will be the best QB he’s played alongside, by far, in his career. Someone who totaled 1,140 yards while catching passes from Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph and Mitchell Trubisky should be able to shine with Prescott — even if he’s a WR2.“
Ironically, playing with more Pro Bowlers is a big part of what could theoretically propel Pickens to that accolade. And when you look at the list of current Cowboys who’ve already been at least once, you can see why some would make Pickens their pick for the next man up.
- CeeDee Lamb 4x
- Dak Prescott 4x
- Micah Parsons 4x
- Brandon Aubrey 2x
- Bryan Anger 2x
- KaVontae Turpin 2x
- Tyler Smith 2x
- DaRon Bland 1x
- Jake Ferguson 1x
- Trevon Diggs 2X (inadvertently left off our initial list)
Some other possibilities should be considered. Cowboys players often have an edge in the fan voting, so an offensive lineman like Cooper Beebe could be competitive with a strong second season. The competition at fullback is usually pretty thin, so Hunter Luepke may only need to make a few plays in big games to be on the radar. If Osa Odighizuwa has the kind of year that some are projecting in Matt Eberflus’ scheme, he could push in an admittedly tough field of NFC defensive tackles.
Pickens probably has the best shot of any of these, but that doesn’t mean he’s likely to get there. It’s rare for a team to send two receivers to a Pro Bowl in the same year, and it’s hard to imagine that Lamb’s offensive share will go down enough to give Pickens the numbers he needs. We also expect Ferguson to get a lot of targets in this offense, so it may not leave enough for Pickens to vault himself among the NFL elite.
Ultimately, George Pickens is here to help the Cowboys win games. We love seeing individual players recognized along the way, but how Pickens fits into the puzzle of making Dallas an NFC contender again is what really matters. We’ll soon see just how big his impact will be, and what it means for both the player and the team in 2025.
Read More Jess Haynie