2026 NFL Draft Steelers Analysis
Why the Steelers Couldn’t Count on Getting a Comp Pick for George Pickens
The Pittsburgh Steelers traded star wide receiver George Pickens to the Dallas Cowboys on Wednesday, getting just a third-round pick in the 2026 NFL Draft and a swap of Day Three draft selections for their former second-round pick.
The return was underwhelming, especially after Steelers general manager Omar Khan had managed to net an early second-round pick for Chase Claypool in similar circumstances a few years ago.
But the word has gotten out that teams don’t want to be the one digging through the Steelers’ garbage at the wide receiver position, and Pickens’ violations have been much more public. It was against the Dallas Cowboys last year, after all, that he wore a profane eye black message and then was benched for part of the game.
The Steelers were also clearly not interested in signing Pickens to a long-term contract extension, which was setting up a potentially contentious offseason between the player and the team.
There wasn’t much hiding the Steelers problems with Pickens, and so the Cowboys were able to get the talented wideout at quite a discount.
The Steelers, on the other hand, barely got more for Pickens than they could have if he left via free agency. The third-round pick will be higher than a third-round compensatory pick, but potentially only by a few slots if Dallas has a good season in 2025.
However, it would have been foolish of the Steelers to count on compensatory pick return for Pickens.
First of all, Pickens had already become a distraction in the Steelers’ locker room, and could easily have become an even bigger one in 2025 if frustrations over a lack of a contract and a reduced role after the trade of DK Metcalf bubbled to the surface. Not having to deal with an unhappy ne’er-do-well on your roster provides its own benefit.Â
Even if the Steelers found a way to keep Pickens in line (for the first time) over the course of the 2025 season, they would have needed him to produce at such a level as to net a massive free agent contract. For all the reasons that Pickens is only worth a third-round pick in a trade, teams have equal reason to be wary about handing him a big-money deal. There’s no guarantee that if Pickens hit the market, he’d be rewarded in a way that would bring the Steelers back the maximum return of a third-round pick in compensation.
The Steelers also don’t have the world’s most dynamic passing offense, and right now Mason Rudolph is their starting quarterback. It’s hard to imagine the Steelers’ second wide receiver having a strong statistical season in that environment.
If Pickens did sign for a big contract, he’d also have to follow through on that investment at least for the first season. Compensatory picks are tied not just to contract amounts, but playing time. If Pickens caused problems with a new team and lost reps as a result — as he did in Pittsburgh — that could reduce the comp pick return.
Then, perhaps most importantly, the Steelers would not be able to sign any big-time free agents in order to get those comp picks. The Steelers had a peculiar situation in 2025 that allows them to maximize their compensatory draft pick haul. They had drafted over starting left Dan Moore Jr., and had two quarterbacks on expiring contracts that both signed as starters elsewhere.
When it became clear that the Steelers were in a strong position to land a big comp pick return in for 2026, Khan restricted his team’s spending and structured his free agent deals in such a way as to maximize the comp pick haul coming back. But that did not allow the Steelers to make the best use of their available salary cap space in free agency. The team still has over $30 million in cap space to spend a not a whole lot to spend it on at this point in the offseason.
In order to realize the return for Pickens via 2027 compensatory pick, the Steelers would have to restrict their free agent spending a second straight offseason. But it doesn’t seem likely that the team would get the same kind of return as they did this year, even if they did so. Besides Pickens, then team has few marquee players on expiring contracts this season. Only safety DeShon Elliott appears set to even possibly leave the team via free agency next offseason as a starter on a big-money deal, and box safeties are notoriously lowly paid around the NFL.
If the Steelers want to make a big splash in free agency next offseason, they would be cancelling out their own comp pick return from Pickens. So what looks it could have been a third-round pick could very easily have ended up netting the Steelers nothing.
There is a possibility that the Steelers could have walked the tightrope of finding a way to keep Pickens happy this season, finding a way to ensure Pickens’ production this year, a team taking a big-money risk on him next spring, Pickens paying off that risk, and the club being able to do its business next offseason without needing to sign an expensive free agent.
But the likelihood of that scenario playing out, compared to the potential benefit, just wasn’t worth it. They have their draft pick in hand, and now they can set out to worry about finding Pickens’ replacement instead of all of the above.