Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens signed the non-exclusive franchise tag, but he hasn’t attended the team’s voluntary offseason workouts. It’s likely an indication that he isn’t happy playing on the one-year, $27.3 million tag that is fully guaranteed, and the Cowboys have made it clear they won’t negotiate on a long-term deal this year.
Pickens’ 1,429 yards and nine touchdowns justified the tag, but no other team has moved to attempt a trade with the Cowboys. The Cowboys — and every other team that might be interested in Pickens — is looking for an encore before committing the $30 million-plus per season it’s going to take to sign Pickens long term.
“This is great from our view,” Cowboys owner Jerry Jones told Jori Epstein of Yahoo Sports. “For him as well, it lets him really extend what he’s got going right now in light of the fact that . . . when we got him, we got him for no other reason than because there was a long-term question. Through next year and this year, he’ll answer all those questions.”
His inconsistency in Pittsburgh was the reason the Steelers offloaded a talented wide receiver for only a third-round pick. His habitual tardiness continued in Dallas, although he lived up to his potential on the field.
Now, it’s figuring out how much a team is willing to commit and for how long.
Nine wide receivers make more than $30 million annually, led by Jaxon Smith-Njigba’s $42.150 million average.
The Cowboys expect Pickens, in his second season with Dak Prescott, to show up and show out.
“We will expect more earlier,” Jones told Epstein. “He will expect more. That he not only build on where he got to last year, the preparation will be out there happening as a major part in any series or any game. So I think from the get-go, he will have more to give in the plans of what we’re doing early and late in the season.”
The Cowboys have not played an international game since 2014 when they traveled to London to play the Jaguars. That is the only international game they have ever played.
For the first time, the Cowboys will give up a home game to play internationally in 2026, traveling to Rio de Janeiro to take on the Ravens.
The game in Brazil will take place Week 3 in a demanding start to the season for the Cowboys.
They play Washington at home in Week 2 before a 10-hour flight to Rio and an 11-hour flight home. The NFL then is sending the Cowboys to Houston for a noon CT game the following Sunday, which is followed by a Thursday night game at home four days later.
Cowboys owner Jerry Jones dismissed the idea that travel is a concern.
“The wear and tear is a lot less than a night out on the town,” Jones told Jori Epstein of Yahoo Sports on Tuesday from the league’s May meeting. “Everybody ought to think about that. Stop, stop. It isn’t like they [would be] home in bed resting up.”
The Cowboys also have a stretch where they play three games in 15 days — the Titans at home on Nov. 22 followed by a Thanksgiving Day game against the Eagles and then a Monday Night Football game at Seattle on Dec. 7. The Monday night game on the West Coast will shorten the Cowboys’ off week in Week 14.
“Part of being a player, part of being that-age person, part of being all of that shape they’re in and what have you, is they’re able to have a little extracurricular in many ways,” Jones told Epstein. “It can be a lot more damaging just walking down the block.”
On Monday night, the Giants held their annual Town Hall event. For the first time arguably since the days of Bill Parcells, the team has a good head coach who is also a clear and direct (and at times blunt) communicator.
Art Stapleton of USA Today has posted a snippet from the event that will be music to the ears of Giants fans.
Here’s the question to John Harbaugh, from one of the folks in the crowd: “We turn on the TV on Sundays, and then we face the Eagles and the Cowboys, and a lot of the time they just kick our butts. How confident are you, Coach, that going into this season we’ll go into those Dallas games, those Eagles games, and those Commanders games, and we’ll take them down?”
“I could care less about what’s happened last year, the year before that, or ten years before that,” Harbaugh said. “Honestly, I don’t give a crap about any of it. Not one bit. All I care about is tomorrow’s practice. Because if tomorrow’s practice is the way it’s supposed to be, that’ll be one more step in the direction of being a good enough football team to kick the Cowboys’ ass.”
And with that, the room exploded in cheers.
“That’s our job,” Harbaugh added. “That’s our job to be good enough to do that. We gotta make ourselves good enough to do that. That’s our responsibility.”
And the countdown to Week 1 continues. With the Cowboys coming to town to face the Giants in Harbaugh’s first game of his first year in New York.
While the proof will be in the proverbial pudding, Harbaugh has the fans more excited than they’ve been in a long time.
The stadium that periodically has an issue with sunlight from the outside now has a pink glow coming from the inside.
It’s part of the Herculean effort to equip AT&T Stadium — officially known through the end of the World Cup as Dallas Stadium — to prepare for nine upcoming matches in the world’s biggest soccer tournament.
NBC DFW recently took a close look at the work being done to transform the Cowboys’ venue into something that will comply with FIFA’s exacting requirements. The grass was grown in Colorado. A ventilation and irrigation system was installed beneath it. Pink lights hang over the pitch to help the grass grow.
The transformation will require 45,000 man-hours and 15,000 tons of material.
Whatever the expense, the powers-that-be have gladly incurred it as a cost of doing FIFA business. When the matches end, it’ll go back to the usual fake stuff that the vast majority of NFL players don’t want.
One such player currently plays for the Cowboys. Receiver CeeDee Lamb recently posted a plea for grass on Instagram.
It won’t be happening in Dallas, unless and until the Collective Bargaining Agreement compels it. And if the players push for it, Cowboys owner Jerry Jones will be at the front of the line that’s pushing. While the effort to secure high-quality natural grass won’t affect the teams that already have it, those that don’t will fight the hardest.
Even if, as Jones is, they’re spending millions for a short-term stint to install grass for fewer than ten international soccer matches.
One of the reasons the Cowboys can hope to have a better defense this season is the fact that linebacker DeMarvion Overshown isn’t rehabbing an injury right now.
After Overshown missed his rookie season in 2023 with a torn ACL, he returned to give the Cowboys an athletic and productive player in the middle of their defense. He had 90 tackles, five sacks, an interception return for a touchdown, a forced fumble and a fumble recovery in 13 games before suffering another knee injury. The recovery from multiple torn ligaments kept him out for most of last season, but he emerged from a five-game return without any more issues to deal with this offseason.
On Thursday, Overshown said that he believes the healthy offseason has him primed for big things in the fall.
“Biggest blessing I can ask for,” Overshown said, via Jon Machota of TheAthletic.com. “I feel like everybody knows when I’m healthy, I’m one of the best linebackers in the league. That’s not to toot my own horn, but the film and that stats speaks for itself when I’m on the field. Being healthy is the number one way to stay on the field and be able to do what I do. “The fact that I get to go through this whole offseason as a healthy man, and coming into training camp healthy, I feel like people ain’t seen my best yet. So, I know it’s going to be one of my best years.”
The Cowboys’ issues on defense last season went beyond missing Overshown, which was illustrated by the numerous moves they made to address that side of the ball over the last few months. Getting Overshown back to where he was a couple of years ago would still be a big step forward for the unit and things appear to be on the right track on that front.
