Cowboys' George Pickens' first lapse of 2025 causes Dallas teammates, coaches to rally around WR

FRISCO, Texas -- All things considered, wide receiver George Pickens has been everything the Dallas Cowboys could have hoped for when they acquired him this past offseason in a trade with the Pittsburgh Steelers. 

Pickens has been a top-5 to top-10 wide receiver across the entire league in 2025 by just about any metric: catches (78, the seventh-most in the NFL), yards receiving (1,179, the third-most in the NFL), receiving touchdowns (8, tied for the fifth-most in the NFL), receiving first downs (62, the second-most in the NFL) and catches of 25 yards or more (11, tied for the second-most in the NFL). 

However, the reason the Steelers were willing to part with the uber-talented 24-year-old and a 2027 sixth-round pick in exchange for the Cowboys' 2026 third-round pick and a 2027 fifth-round pick reared its head in Dallas' 44-30 "Thursday Night Football" road defeat at the Detroit Lions in Week 14. Pickens' attitude that helps make him one of the NFL's toughest covers can also appear to some to sometimes take himself out of the game. He racked up just 37 yards receiving on five catches, his fewest total putting up 30 yards in Week 1 at the Philadelphia Eagles, on a night in which co-No. 1 receiver CeeDee Lamb exited early with a concussion. 

Retired five-time Pro Bowl cornerback Richard Sherman called Pickens "uninterested" when going through some of his routes in Dallas' 44-30 "Thursday Night Football" loss in Week 14. 

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"George Pickens throughout the game, especially late in the game, just looked uninterested. Uninterested in playing football," Sherman said. "That's what you can't have. If you're going to be a superstar, if you want to be the best receiver in the National Football League, you can't ever be disengaged. It doesn't matter if the game's going your way or not going your way."  

Pickens clapped back at Sherman on his Instagram story after the game. 

Cowboys head coach Brian Schottenheimer met with Pickens about his performance, and he revealed the wide receiver did take accountability for his latest outing. 

"We talked a little bit about it. In his words, he said 'Hey Schotty, I didn't play my best game.' I think that, unfortunately, none of us played our best game, so that's reality," Schottenheimer said on Monday. "But again, I don't worry about George and his love for football and playing this game. Again, you know for five or six weeks, he was the talk of the sporting world. 'Look at George Pickens.' We didn't coach or play well enough to win that game in Detroit. They beat us. It is what it is."

Dallas All-Pro wide receiver CeeDee Lamb has been one of Pickens' biggest proponents since his arrival, and he's been happy to take the 24-year-old under his wing. He wasn't surprised by the criticism Pickens received after the Cowboys road loss in Detroit, but he also didn't see it as justified given Pickens is performing at an All-Pro caliber level in 2025. 

"I just feel like they were waiting on him to have a bad game. It was quiet all season, and he was averaging 100, 110 [yards] doing crazy things. But the one opportunity that he didn't step up to their appreciation. I feel like for us to come out victorious [that night], it wasn't just all on him," Lamb said after practice on Thursday. "Once one of us go out, d-coordinators are very smart. It's not like I go out [with a concussion], and they stay playing the same coverage. They're going to lean coverage to him. ... They're going to do different things. People are smart. People understand football. ... People don't want to get fired, and they know if they let G[eorge] spin by himself, somebody's getting fired."

Lamb can also relate to being the target of Sherman's disdain in recent years. In 2023, Lamb and Dallas' offense started slow, and Sherman said the Cowboys' latest No. 88 wasn't a "bonafide" top tier wideout. He ended that season with an NFL-best 135 catches, 1,749 yards receiving (the second-most in the NFL) and 12 receiving touchdowns (the third-most in the NFL). That's why he's taken it upon himself to be there for Pickens at this moment. 

"Man, I've been in that position. I know what he's feeling. I've talked to him, and I'm not going to tell you what we talked about but as far as … it just kind of gets annoying as a player because like you do everything for your team. Mind you, we are here 10 and 12 hours a day. We are putting our work in every single day. Every day we work hard at practice, trying to get the timing down and everything," Lamb said. "Then you get in the game, and the coverage just switches or you get a sudden change and somebody gets taken out, you can't prepare for those things. That's not something that you can just do weekly, 'All right, well what if he goes down? What if he does this?' No, that's not how it goes. As a football player you know you got to adjust and the defense did a great job. They did a great job of cutting 3 [Pickens] out. That's it. That simple."

Lamb's mindset on Pickens is shared all the way up to the top of the Cowboys org chart by owner and general manager Jerry Jones. Dallas' big boss made it unequivocally clear that he doesn't have any issue with Pickens' mindset or attitude. 

"Let me say this. One of the things that you got to appreciate about George Pickens is his intensity for the competition. He is a major, big-time competitor. Those are not the kind of things you hear addressed when you're thinking of things that George could do better on,"  Jones said Tuesday on 105.3 The Fan in Dallas. "When it comes to competing, when it comes to loving the game, and I emphasize that point right there -- loving the game -- then I give him many pluses. ... I look at what George Pickens has done all year. ... Just so I'm real clear about it, I don't have any concern about the debate about what George Pickens did or didn't do in that game. I don't have that concern about him as far as his competing and helping us win football games on the field. At all."

That's been borne out with the way Pickens' teammates have seen him approach the week of practice ahead of a pivotal "Sunday Night Football" matchup with the Minnesota Vikings. With a 6-6-1 record, the Cowboys' narrow path to a postseason berth will require them to win all four of their remaining regular season games and receive help from a few different places. Ending the year on a four-game winning streak will require Pickens' best foot forward. 

"He's responded great. Just came in like a pro, as I expected him to do. ... When you're playing to the level he is and to the standard, what he put out there is not to his standard or anybody's expectations when you play the way that he does," Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott said after practice on Thursday. ... "He's had a hell of a week of practice, and he's going to continue to finish that way. There's no doubt all that is going to just transpire into the game."