Dallas Cowboys Have New Plan For Deploying George Pickens Ahead of 2026 Season

The plan for George Pickens during his first season with the Dallas Cowboys was pretty simple: go line up outside and beat your guy.

While that will definitely still be part of the plan in his second year in Dallas, head coach Brian Schottenheimer revealed he wants to "move George around more" in 2026, Patrik Walker of DallasCowboys.com reported.

"As we talk about evolving, I would say the biggest thing we're doing is we want to move George around more," Schottenheimer said of Pickens, who confirmed he won't be holding out or in this offseason. "He's not just going to live at X. He doesn't like that anyways. We want to put him in the slot some, we want to get him isolated some to the front side, the same side as the tight end."

Schottenheimer also noted how the Cowboys want to be able to complement what Pickens does so well, which is running slants.

"Last year, I know you guys (the media) basically tried to stop our slant game because (Pickens) was so good at slants and you guys kept asking me about it every week and so everyone kept jumping inside and making it hard on us, so I appreciate that, thank you guys," Schottenheimer joked.

"That's the biggest thing is how do we complement the things that we know he is so good at that the whole league knows, the whole world knows he's good at, but we've got things off of that. He's a fun tool to mess around with," Schotty added.

George Pickens' slot usage

Dallas Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens (3) goes through a drill during practice at the Ford Center. — Dallas Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens. | Chris Jones-Imagn Images

Pickens was never used a ton in the slot with the Pittsburgh Steelers, but he did see a career-low number of snaps there with the Cowboys in 2026, with Pickens playing 68 in total. Over three years with the Steelers, Pickens saw 81, 97 and 106 snaps, per Pro Football Focus.

Both Ryan Flournoy (104 snaps) and CeeDee Lamb (173 snaps) played more in the slot than Pickens in 2025.

Utilizing Pickens in the slot and moving all three receivers around more will be a huge benefit for the Cowboys' offense, as that will allow Dallas to attack favorable matchups while also keeping defenses off balance.

"They're not the only ones that can do algebra," Schottenheimer said in reference to Dallas' defense disguising things in practice. "We can change the math (with the wide receivers) as well."

We didn't get a chance to see Pickens lining up in different spots at mandatory minicamp because he was limited as the team looks to ramp him up following his absence from OTAs.

The next chance we'll get to see Pickens is at training camp, which will begin in late July.

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