George Pickens Listed among Top Potential 2025 Trade Candidates
Pro Football Focus named Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver George Pickens one of its 15 top potential trade targets of the 2025 offseason.
Pickens is by far the team’s top wide receiver in 2024, with 900 yards on the season despite missing three games, so he is not immediately an obvious trade candidate.
But Pickens is entering the final season of his rookie contract with Steelers in 2025, and it’s unclear if the Steelers will want to commit to singing him to a long-term contract this offseason.
Pickens has had numerous on- and off-the-field incidents since joining the Steelers that might make the team shy away from doing that. This season, he’s been twice fined for skirmishes with opponents after the final whistle of a loss. He also was fined for wearing an obscene gesture on his eye black against the Dallas Cowboys, penalized twice for 30 yards at Cincinnati and was spotted by TV cameras yelling at fans during Saturday’s season-ending loss against the Cincinnati Bengals.
The Steelers may not want to reward Pickens with a multi-year contract extension this offseason, but he might not be willing to play without one, which could lead to a trade scenario.
That being said, the Steelers would be hard-pressed to improve their wide receiver position in one offseason while also trading Pickens, thanks to the lack of depth around him.
The Steelers made a desperate push this past offseason to trade for San Francisco 49ers wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk, and when that fell through, they went into the season with just Van Jefferson and Calvin Austin III behind Pickens in the starting lineup.
Austin had a promising season, finishing with a career-high 548 yards, while Jefferson ended up with just 276. Jefferson, and fellow receivers Mike Williams, Ben Skowronek and Scotty Miller are all pending free agents, leaving the Steelers with just Austin and Pickens under contract for 2025 — a tough situation to make a trade from.
Pickens was the only Steelers player PFF listed in their top 15 trade candidates Deebo Samuel of the San Francisco 49ers, DK Metcalf of the Seattle Seahawks and Garrett Wilson of the New York Jets were the other receivers on the list.
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