Report: Cowboys are expected to apply franchise tag to George Pickens

Here we go again.

The Cowboys and a player represented by agent David Mulugheta are headed for a potential contract dispute.

Adam Schefter of ESPN.com reports that the Cowboys are expected to apply the franchise tag to receiver George Pickens. That would block Pickens from hitting the open market on March 11 as an unrestricted free agent.

The Cowboys acquired Pickens in a May 2025 trade with the Steelers. Dallas sent a third-round pick in 2026 and a fifth-round pick in 2027 for Pickens and a sixth-round pick in 2027.

Pickens had a career-high 93 catches for a career-high 1,429 receiving yards and a career-high nine receiving touchdowns. He earned second-team All-Pro honors.

The franchise tag for receivers will be in the range of $28 million. That’s more than four times his career earnings of $6.7 million, but it’s far less than the current market rate of $40 million per year.

If/when the tag is applied, the Cowboys and Pickens will have until July 15 to negotiate a multi-year deal. If the non-exclusive tag is applied, any other team would be eligible to sign Pickens to an offer sheet, with the Cowboys having a right to match and two first-round picks as compensation if they don’t.

Pickens will have the right to withhold services until he gets a long-term deal, since he won’t be under contract. He can stay away from the offseason program, training camp, and the preseason. He can show up and accept the franchise tender days before the start of the regular season and still make his full tag amount.

And while, on the surface, there’s no reason to hold out after July 15 (since he can’t get a long-term deal), Pickens could take the position that he wants more than the amount of the tag for 2026.

On the other hand, if Pickens will essentially be in a second straight contract year, he may decide to take the money, show up early, and do everything he can to chase a long-term deal in 2027. Of course, the Cowboys could tag him a second time in 2027; by rule, he’d get a 20-percent increase over the 2026 compensation. At $28 million this year, he’d get $33.6 million in 2027.

Last year, Mulugheta client Micah Parsons and the Cowboys had an ugly contract standoff that resulted in a late-August trade. A repeat of that specific outcome is unlikely this time around, because a trade after July 15 would not allow Pickens’s new team to sign him to a multi-year deal.

Still, this one could get ugly in other ways. Especially if Cowboys owner Jerry Jones insists on trying to bypass Mulugheta and negotiate directly with Pickens.