George Pickens' 2026 season likely to be his Cowboys swan song after Zay Flowers, Drake London contracts

The Dallas Cowboys and their fan base need to treasure Pro Bowl wide receiver George Pickens while they still can because the 2026 season will likely be his last in Dallas. 

While that is an incredibly gloomy thought early on in training camp, the time on the NFL calendar when hope springs eternal for all of the league's 32 teams, it's a realistic conclusion given the continual uptick in the wide receiver contracts market and what Dallas will likely choose to prioritize. 

The Baltimore Ravens inked two-time Pro Bowl wide receiver Zay Flowers to a reported four-year, $140 million extension on Tuesday prior to the start of his fourth NFL season. That deal is identical to Minnesota Vikings 2022 NFL Offensive Player of the Year wide receiver Justin Jefferson's in both years and total contract value, with Jefferson earning $2 million more than Flowers in guaranteed money, $110 million to $108 million. In June, the Atlanta Falcons re-signed wide receiver Drake London, Pickens' 2022 NFL Draft classmate, to a four-year, $141.054 million extension with $99.87 million guaranteed, making him the third-highest-paid receiver in the league. 

Pickens, meanwhile, is locked in on the franchise tag, which will pay him $27.298 million fully guaranteed in 2026 after the Cowboys decided not to engage with him and agent David Mulugheta in long-term contract talks this offseason. That's puzzling with Pickens fresh off producing a career year with 1,429 yards receiving and 9 receiving touchdowns on 93 catches. Ranking third in the entire league in receiving yards earned the 25-year-old the first Pro Bowl and All-Pro selections (second team) of his career. Neither Flowers nor London has registered as gaudy a receiving yards total as Pickens did last season. 

He leads the trio in career receiving yards (4,270) and career yards per reception average (16.0), while London has the edge in career receptions (309) and a narrow lead in career receiving touchdowns (22). Pickens' 21 career receiving touchdowns are one behind his 2022 NFL Draft classmate. Translation: Pickens can now demand more money than both Flowers and London on a long-term deal with a straight face. That's a significant problem for Dallas for a multitude of reasons, despite Jerry Jones feeling like Pickens having to prove it again on the franchise tag is a win-win situation for both parties. 

"This can be a very win-win thing that we've done here: us, George and George being on the team," Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said at Dallas' opening training camp press conference. "Make no mistake about it: George could be a Cowboy for the rest of his career, and that would be a long time. Make no mistake about it. This [the franchise tag] just fit for us, and thank goodness it fit for him, and we got it done."    

The love between Pickens and Jones is mutual ... until the two sides have to sit down at the negotiating table again next offseason. 

"Super excited. I'm always super happy when someone thinks highly of me, so shout out to Jerry," Pickens said on July 30, via The Athletic. 

* Career high 

Waiting to extend Pickens, rather than doing so when trading for him as a somewhat distressed asset in May of 2025, has come back to bite them. The talent was always there, and in 2025, Pickens showed how prolific he can be with a quarterback of Dak Prescott's caliber, rather than the mediocre carousel of passers Pittsburgh paraded through its franchise from 2022 to 2024. 

Pay Pickens or Williams?

Now, the Cowboys have two major contractual decisions to make that will determine Pickens' future in Dallas: paying Pickens vs. paying All-Pro wide receiver CeeDee Lamb, and paying Pickens vs. paying All-Pro defensive tackle Quinnen Williams. Playing the waiting game led Dallas to re-sign their present-day No. 88 to a four-year, $136 million extension with $82 million guaranteed back in 2024. Delaying those negotiations in tandem with Pickens puts the Cowboys in a position where they have to choose between paying Lamb or Pickens, and Dallas will end up choosing Lamb. Dallas puts a premium on homegrown players they choose to extend, and Lamb has been everything the Cowboys have hoped for: he's developed into an All-Pro, five-time Pro Bowler who is also a team captain. 

As for the Williams vs. Pickens debate, it seems as though the Jones family has already made their choice. They're choosing to prioritize the All-Pro anchor of their defense, whom they traded for, in an effort to make people forget about how they traded away All-Pro edge rusher Micah Parsons to the Green Bay Packers. 

"Absolutely, we're very open to that," Cowboys COO Stephen Jones said at Dallas' opening training camp press conference when asked about extending Williams. "We want Quinnen here for the long haul. Obviously, we've got a lot of resources tied up in him. He knows what we think about him. We've had some discussions with the agent about how to go about the process. 

"Certainly he's [Williams] one of the best in the business, and we know kind of what that market is. Obviously, it evolves and changes with each new deal, which is the case at any position. Certainly, he's at the top of the list in terms of the people that we want to keep around here long term, and there's other players on the roster that we may take a look at as well as we move forward."

Next offseason, the Cowboys will likely end up either tagging and trading Pickens or allowing him to walk in free agency in exchange for a third-round compensatory draft pick, thanks to their inability to get ahead of the fast-evolving wide receiver market. Either outcome is deflating because Dallas successfully identified a high-level talent who could reach new heights within their high-powered offensive ecosystem. Choosing to procrastinate on addressing his long-term contractual future will likely lead to him ending up like Parsons: another All-Pro-caliber talent Dallas developed, going on to crush it with another NFL team for the long haul.