The Dallas Cowboys are likely going to place the franchise tag on wide receiver George Pickens. Stephen Jones offered this bit of news from the NFL combine on Monday, and it hardly comes as a surprise.
The window for NFL teams to place the franchise tag on players opened last week and officially closes
on March 3rd. If the Cowboys want to keep Pickens around and don’t have a long-term deal in place by then, well, obviously it makes sense to tag Pickens to at the very least buy time.
As far as wide receivers are concerned, the franchise tag value is expected to come in around $28M once things are official and set in stone. That is south of the $30M APY that Pickens’ representation reportedly hoped to get when he first joined the team, but it stands to reason that he would clear that on a hypothetical new deal.
It goes without saying that this is the biggest story going on with the Cowboys at the moment. Until Pickens has officially been tagged or has a new deal, it is going to be a thing.
Brandon Aubrey is a thing too, though.
Sunday evening brought news that the Cowboys are prepared to place a tender, whether a first- or second-round type, on Aubrey to protect themselves ahead of free agency should they not have a deal in place between now and then (this is a common theme).
