Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott advised wide receiver George Pickens to “bet on yourself” when Pickens received the franchise tag earlier this year and Pickens took that advice.
Pickens signed the tag despite the Cowboys saying they have no plans to work out a long-term contract extension with the wideout this offseason. Pickens’s decision has not led him to take part in the voluntary portions of the team’s offseason program, but that isn’t an issue for Prescott when it come to Pickens’s preparation for the season.
While at the team’s charity home run derby Thursday, Prescott said that he and Pickens have done “as much as needed” while working together on their own and that he has no doubt Pickens will hit the ground running once he is with the team.
“I’ve just showed George my support,” Prescott said, via the team’s website. “The guy that I know George is, obviously he signed the tag, so when he has to be there and ready to play, he’s going to be there. He’s a hell of a talent. We’ve thrown this offseason, so I’m comfortable with where he’s at and I’m excited for when he can get in the building and get rolling.”
The only mandatory work of the Cowboys’ offseason is at their minicamp in mid-June. Pickens may not be around until that starts, but that won’t be an issue for his quarterback.
Cowboys Clips
The NFL did the Chiefs a favor, giving them an early off week as Patrick Mahomes works his way back.
The Chiefs and Panthers have the earliest possible bye, getting an off week in Week 5.
The Chiefs quarterback tore the ACL and LCL in his left knee in a Dec. 14 game against the Chargers and underwent surgery the following day. There is no timeline for his return, although Mahomes reportedly is ahead of schedule in his rehab and is shooting for Week 1.
If he’s not ready, Mahomes would miss only four games in six weeks. Those four games are the Broncos, Colts, Dolphins and Raiders, so the start to the season is not nearly as hard as it could have been.
The Cowboys and Cardinals have the latest possible off week, with their bye coming in Week 14.
Here are the other bye weeks:
Week 6 — Bengals, Lions, Dolphins, Vikings.
Week 7 — Bills, Jaguars, Chargers, Commanders.
Week 8 — Giants, Texans, Saints, 49ers.
Week 9 — Steelers, Titans.
Week 10 — Bears, Broncos, Eagles, Bucs.
Week 11 — Seahawks, Rams, Falcons, Patriots, Browns, Packers.
Week 13 — Ravens, Jets, Colts, Raiders.
The first Monday night matchup of 2026, between the Chiefs and Broncos, was announced earlier this week.
Now we know the complete MNF schedule for the coming season.
Unlike the last few years, there are no longer simultaneous Monday night doubleheaders on ABC and ESPN.
As the network has been heavily advertising recently, Super Bowl LXI will be the first broadcast on ESPN in February from SoFi Stadium in Los Angeles.
All games are set to kick off at 8:15 p.m. ET on Monday night.
Week 1: Broncos at Chiefs
Week 2: Giants at Rams
Week 3: Eagles at Bears
Week 4: Falcons at Saints
Week 5: Bills at Rams
Week 6: Commanders at 49ers
Week 7: Cowboys at Eagles
Week 8: Bears at Seahawks
Week 9: Bills at Vikings
Week 10: Chargers at Ravens
Week 11: Bengals at Commanders
Week 12: Panthers at Buccaneers
Week 13: Cowboys at Seahawks
Week 14: Steelers at Jaguars
Week 15: Patriots at Chiefs
Week 16: Giants at Lions
Week 17: Texans at Packers
We don’t know if Fernando Mendoza will be starting at quarterback for the Raiders in Week 1 of the regular season, but we do know who the Raiders will be playing in the first overall pick’s potential debut.
The NFL’s schedule reveal on Thursday night shows that the Raiders will host the Dolphins at 4:25 p.m. ET on Sunday, September 13. The game will be on Fox.
Mendoza will have to get the nod over Kirk Cousins in order to start for the Raiders. Offseason addition Malik Willis is expected to make his first appearance for the Dolphins. Both teams will definitely have head coaches making their offseason debut as Las Vegas hired Klint Kubiak in February and Miami hired Jeff Hafley in January.
Sunday will also feature a pair of divisional games in the late afternoon window. The Packers will visit the Vikings while the Commanders will be in Philadelphia to renew their acquaintance with the Eagles. The NFC North matchup will be on CBS while the NFC East clash will be broadcast by Fox.
The other late game on Sunday afternoon will see the Cardinals visiting the Chargers on CBS. Arizona could have Jacoby Brissett, Gardner Minshew or rookie Carson Beck at quarterback for that contest.
The 1 p.m. ET games will send the Bills to Houston for a date with the Texans while the Browns go on the road against the Jaguars. The Colts will host the Ravens, the Saints will visit the Lions, the Buccaneers will travel to Cincinnati for Dexter Lawrence’s first game as a Bengal, and the Steelers will kick off the Mike McCarthy era — with or without Aaron Rodgers — at home against the Falcons.
Previous reports revealed that the Jets will be in Tennessee and that the Bears will head to Charlotte to face the Panthers. The Jets-Titans game will be on CBS along with the Bills-Texans, Ravens-Colts and Browns-Jaguars games. All the other 1 p.m. games will be on Fox.
The entire Week 1 slate will kick off on Wednesday, September 9 with a Patriots-Seahawks Super Bowl rematch in Seattle on NBC. Thursday will bring a Netflix game between the 49ers and Rams in the NFL’s first game in Melbourne and Sunday night will find the Cowboys at MetLife Stadium to meet the Giants on NBC’s Sunday Night Football. Those games were all announced ahead of Thursday’s full schedule reveal, which was also the case for the ESPN Monday night game between the Broncos and Chiefs in Kansas City.
The NFL announced the matchups for its first Thanksgiving Eve game and all three Thanksgiving games ahead of Thursday night’s schedule reveal, so the only thing left to announce for the three-day holiday spread of games was the Black Friday matchup.
That game will feature the Broncos visiting the Steelers in a game that will start at 3 p.m. ET. The game will be broadcast on Amazon Prime Video.
It will be the first time that either franchise has played a Black Friday game. The NFL first held a game on the day after Thanksgiving in 2023 and NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has said that the league is considering ways to add a second game.
That is what they’ve done with the Thanksgiving Eve game. It will involve the Packers visiting the Rams on Wednesday night in a game broadcast by Netflix.
Thanksgiving’s schedule will start in Detroit as usual. The Lions will host the Bears at 1 p.m. ET on CBS and the Eagles will visit the Cowboys on Fox at 4:30 p.m. ET. Thursday’s action will conclude with the Chiefs in Buffalo to face the Bills at 8:20 p.m. ET on NBC.
All of the international matchups for the 2026 NFL season were announced on Wednesday morning.
We already knew the first two games on the schedule. The 49ers and Rams will meet in the NFL’s first-ever game in Melbourne, Australia in Week 1 while the Ravens and Cowboys will head to Brazil to play a game in Rio in Week 3.
There will be three straight weeks of games in London kicking off the next week. The Colts will face the Commanders at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in Week 4 and the Eagles and Jaguars will square off in the same place the next week. The Jaguars will stay in London to take on the Texans at Wembley Stadium in Week 6.
From there, it will be on to Paris for the first time in league history. The Steelers will battle the Saints at Stade de France in Week 7.
The Bengals-Falcons matchup in Madrid in Week 9 was announced earlier this week and it will be followed by a Patriots-Lions clash at Allianz Arena in Munich the next weekend. The NFL’s return to Mexico City will come in Week 11 when the Vikings and the 49ers square off on Sunday Night Football.
NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell has talked about his desire to see the league play international games each week and the NFL is moving closer to that goal in 2026.
Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens signed his franchise tag on April 29, and executive vice president Stephen Jones said soon after the team expected Pickens to show up for voluntary work.
Monday was the first team workout for the Cowboys since Pickens signed the one-year, $27.3 million deal, and Nick Harris of the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reports that Pickens was not present.
Nothing is mandatory until June 16, so he can stay away until then without being fined.
The Cowboys announced they will not negotiate a long-term deal with Pickens this offseason, and Jones has repeatedly said the team has “zero interest” in trading Pickens.
The Cowboys traded for Pickens a year ago, and he led the team in targets (137), catches (93), yards (1,429) and touchdowns (eight) in 2025.
When edge rusher DeMarcus Lawrence signed with the Seahawks last year, he said Dallas was his home but that he moved on to Seattle because he kenw “for sure I’m not going to win a Super Bowl there.”
Lawrence wound up holding the Lombardi Trophy less than a year later and his move from the Cowboys to a Super Bowl title made for an effective recruiting pitch. Dante Fowler played with Lawrence in Dallas in 2022 and 2023, which led to a relationship that Fowler tapped into when looking for advice about his next move. The edge rusher is now teammates with Lawrence again and shared the message he got as part of that conversation.
“If you want to win a Super Bowl, you should come here,” Fowler said, via the team’s website.
Fowler also played for Seahawks defensive coordinator Aden Durde in both Dallas and Atlanta, so Lawrence isn’t the only familiar face he’ll be reunited with as a member of his new team. Lawrence’s story sounds like the big hook for Fowler, however.
“It was amazing, just to be able to play with him for the past couple of years,” Fowler said. “The legacy he left, when he left, it was a big thing, and to see him come here and see how great he played — he was very healthy, he took this defense to another level, and he won a Super Bowl, something that he has been talking about since I met him. So it was really cool to watch him in that position.”
Repeats are tough, but a second Seahawks title in a row might lead to even more players trying to make the jump from Dallas to Seattle in hopes of realizing their championship dreams.
Former NFL quarterback Craig Morton, who led the Broncos to their first Super Bowl appearance, died on May 9 at his home in Mill Valley, California, the Broncos announced Monday. He was 83.
Morton, who spent six seasons with the Broncos from 1977-82, led Denver to its first playoff appearance and a berth in Super Bowl XII. The Broncos went 12-record in 1977 and had home playoff wins over the Steelers and Raiders before losing 27-10 to the Cowboys in the Super Bowl when Morton threw four interceptions against his former team.
For his performance during that 1977 regular season, Morton was named the AFC’s Offensive Player of the Year. He was also named the Sporting News Player of the Year, the PFWA Comeback Player of the Year and the NFL UPI MVP for the 1977 season.
In that AFC Championship Game win over the Raiders, Morton played through a hip injury that led to him spending days in the hospital ahead of the game.
During his Broncos career, Morton led the team to a pair of division titles and three playoff berths. He finished his career with the most passing yards (11,895), passing touchdowns (74), pass attempts (1,594) and completions (907) in franchise history to that point.
His 41 regular-season wins remain the third-most in franchise history.
Morton was inducted into the Broncos Ring of Fame in 1988, two years after his induction into the Colorado Sports Hall of Fame.
He began his career with the Cowboys as the fifth overall pick in 1965. He played in Dallas until 1974, and the Cowboys traded him to the Giants after he lost the starting job to Roger Staubach.
With the Cowboys, Morton threw for 10,279 yards and 80 touchdowns.
In his career, he threw for 183 touchdowns and 27,908 yards while winning 81 regular-season games.
The NFL announced that the Cowboys will host the Eagles on Thanksgiving Day in Week 12, with kickoff set for 4:30 p.m. ET on FOX.
The Cowboys’ Thanksgiving Day game annually is the highest-rated regular-season game of the NFL season, regardless of their opponent. The Chiefs were Dallas’ opponent on Thanksgiving Day in 2025, and the game set a new regular-season ratings record with 57.3 million viewers.
That was the 58th Thanksgiving Day game for the Cowboys, while the Eagles have played seven games on Turkey Day. Philadelphia last played in Arlington on Thanksgiving Day in 2014, when the Eagles defeated the Cowboys 33-10.
The only other time the Eagles played at the Cowboys on Thanksgiving Day was in 1989 when the Buddy Ryan-led Birds beat the Jimmy Johnson-led Cowboys 27-0 in a game known as the “Bounty Bowl.”
The Cowboys are 35-22-1 all-time on Thanksgiving Day and have won their past four games.
The Cowboys now know three games on their 2026 schedule. They will open the season on the road against the Giants on Sunday Night Football and will face the Ravens in Week 3 in Rio de Janeiro.
The NFL will announce the full schedule on Thursday at 8 p.m. ET.
