MAY 5: During a Sunday SportsCenter appearance, ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler reported (via Bleacher Report) Pickens’ desire is to remain in Pittsburgh, adding negotiations on the trade front have “really cooled.” Pickens should be expected to at least start the 2025 campaign as a Steeler, but his future beyond that period will no doubt remain a talking point.
MAY 4: Steelers wide receiver George Pickens’ time with the club is limited, according to senior NFL reporter James Palmer in a piece for Bleacher Report (video link). Palmer expects Pickens to be out of Pittsburgh at some point before the 2026 season, either as a result of a pre-deadline trade in 2025 or simply because the Steelers allow the contract-year player to depart in free agency next March.
In light of recent trade reports regarding Pickens – reports in which Pittsburgh was said to be both making and receiving calls on the Georgia product – Palmer’s report does not come as a surprise. Questions about Pickens’ maturity have dogged him before and after he turned pro, and Palmer says “it has not gone well behind the scenes at all” between Pickens and the team.
Aside from any off-field issues the Steelers might have with the 24-year-old deep threat, moving on from him would be consistent with their standard operating procedure. As our Sam Robinson noted as part of the pre-draft trade chatter surrounding Pickens, Pittsburgh tends to authorize one notable contract for its WR corps while filling out the rest of the depth chart with cost-controlled talent. Since the Steelers invested both significant draft capital and a high-end contract into recent trade acquisition D.K. Metcalf, it stands to reason that they would move on from Pickens before he gets his second NFL deal.
Still, the team does plan to compete for a postseason berth in 2025, and whatever headaches Pickens might bring to the locker room, he has performed as well as could be expected with less-than-stellar quarterback play during his first three years in the NFL. He led the league with an 18.1 yards-per-catch rate in 2023 as part of a 63/1,140/5 performance, and he likely would have approached or eclipsed the 1,100-yard mark again in 2024 if he had not missed three games due to injury (the only three contests he has missed in his career).
Plus, although Palmer confirms the Steelers did a great deal of research on the 2025 class of college wideouts, they did not use any of their seven selections on a pass…