Mike Florio ,
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Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer had no issue with the perception created by receiver George Pickens during Thursday’s game. Schottenheimer seems to have an issue with the reality authored by Pickens on Friday.
Regarding Pickens’s pointed social-media attack on Prime Video’s Richard Sherman, Schottenheimer said he’ll be talking to Pickens.
“I’m aware of what was supposedly put out there,” Schottenheimer said Friday, via Todd Archer of ESPN.com. “I’ve not talked to him yet. I understand it’s been taken down, but I will be talking to him, just checking on him. Again, this is unfortunately things that we deal with in this profession. But I have not spoken to him, but I will .”
Speaking to him is one thing. The precise message will be another. Will Schottenheimer tiptoe around the problem? Will Schottenheimer be more pointed about the expectations?
The entire issue dredges up factors that made the Steelers willing to trade Pickens (whom they didn’t properly use) and pay market value to DK Metcalf (whom they don’t properly use): Accountability, or lack thereof; maturity, or lack thereof; self-awareness, or lack thereof.
When the overriding question is the value of Pickens’s next contract — and whether the Cowboys will kick the can to 2026 via the franchise tag — everything matters. Once that big contract is signed, the team assumes the risk. Of injury. Of ineffectiveness. Of the player creating issues with no effective mechanism for making it stop.
A massive contract gives the player who receives it power. The Cowboys need to be ready and willing to surrender so much authority to Pickens.
Recently, owner/G.M. Jerry Jones was sufficiently smitten by a Monday night performance from Pickens that Jones declared it was “poetic,” an “opera,” a “ballet.”
Once Pickens get paid, it also could become a Greek tragedy.
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