{"id":803204,"date":"2026-07-16T04:17:41","date_gmt":"2026-07-16T04:17:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/803204\/"},"modified":"2026-07-16T04:17:41","modified_gmt":"2026-07-16T04:17:41","slug":"cowboys-george-pickens-will-play-the-2026-season-under-27-3-million-franchise-tag","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/803204\/","title":{"rendered":"Cowboys’ George Pickens will play the 2026 season under $27.3 million franchise tag"},"content":{"rendered":"

The star wideout will play the 2026 season under a $27.3 million franchise tag after Wednesday\u2019s deadline passed without a long-term agreement<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"<\/p>\n

<\/a><\/p>\n

Jul 15, 2026<\/p>\n

at<\/p>\n

8:20 pm ET<\/p>\n

\u2022<\/p>\n

1 min read<\/p>\n

Wednesday’s 4 p.m. ET deadline to sign long-term contracts has come and gone, meaning any players seeking a major deal will be playing under a franchise tag. Dallas Cowboys<\/a> wide receiver George Pickens<\/a>\u00a0fits that bill.<\/p>\n

The 25-year-old will play the 2026 season on his $27.3 million franchise tag, per ESPN<\/a>, something he said<\/a> last month that he was ready to do. Pickens signed his franchise tender and is under contract for the upcoming season.<\/p>\n

A tag was the expected result, as the Cowboys said<\/a> at April’s NFL Draft<\/a> that they didn’t plan on negotiating a long-term deal.<\/p>\n

“Like the tag and all that, it’s just football first,” Pickens said after the first day of mandatory minicamp. “So, definitely play football first, kind of like I did last year, and then worry about [the contract] … Well, let my agent worry about it, really.”<\/p>\n

Pickens joined the Cowboys from the Pittsburgh Steelers<\/a> ahead of the 2025 season. He put up his best numbers last season, with career highs in catches (93), yards (1,429) and touchdowns (9).<\/p>\n

The Cowboys will begin their season on Sept. 13 in a divisional game against the New York Giants<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The star wideout will play the 2026 season under a $27.3 million franchise tag after Wednesday\u2019s deadline passed…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":803205,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[559],"tags":[64,63,1234,1265,1242,593,376316,376317,1241,85],"class_list":["post-803204","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nfl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-george-pickens","tag-new-york-giants","tag-nfl","tag-nfl-franchise-tag-deadline","tag-pickens-salary","tag-pittsburgh-steelers","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803204","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=803204"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/803204\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/803205"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=803204"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=803204"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=803204"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}