George Pickens — Week 1: Twenty-Eight Yards on Six Targets
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 14
Pickens was targeted six times and caught three for 28 yards; the throws to him traveled 104 yards in the air, and the three deep ones all fell incomplete, including the third-and-four incompletion with 2:11 left in the first quarter that cost nearly four points of win probability. CeeDee Lamb had eight targets, five catches and the touchdown, in a 28–20 loss to the Giants.
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Seven to nothing, Giants, two 11 left in the first quarter, third and four at the Dallas 43. Dak Prescott threw deep right for George Pickens and it fell incomplete under pressure from Arvell Reese. −1.6 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position — and −3.7 points of win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it, the second-largest loss on any Cowboys pass play, behind only the interception. Dallas punted. The pattern held all night: the throws to Pickens traveled a hundred four yards in the air, and 28 of them were caught.
The line: six targets, three catches, 28 yards, two first downs, +0.6 expected points on the targets, and a longest of 11. Four targets before halftime for two catches and 17 yards; two after for one catch and 11. The catches were all short: eight yards on third and nine on the opening possession, a yard shy of the sticks; nine yards on third and five with five 23 left in the first quarter, a conversion; and 11 short left on second and 10 with six 13 left in the third. The three incompletions were all deep: the third-and-four throw, a deep right on second and four with a minute 24 left in the half, and a deep left on first and 10 with five 53 left in the game. Three third-down targets, one conversion. No target inside the 20.
Six targets were second on the team. Prescott threw eight times to Lamb, six to Pickens, five to Javonte Williams, four to Ryan Flournoy, two each to Jake Ferguson and Brevyn Spann-Ford, one each to KaVontae Turpin, Luke Schoonmaker and Jonathan Mingo, and four throws with no receiver credited. Between the two alphas it was Lamb eight, five, 44 and the touchdown; Pickens six, three, 28. Lamb's targets came out at +5.6 expected points, Pickens's at +0.6. Prescott threw eight passes the play-by-play labels deep all night and completed none; three of them were to Pickens.
Back in June the preview put Pickens on the watchlist — the tenth receiver at pick 24 after a WR5 finish that needed a Lamb injury to happen, with 12 points a game as the baseline when Lamb is active — and named the target share with a healthy Lamb as the entire question, plus a touchdown rate with give in it. Sunday was the question asked once: Lamb healthy, eight targets to six, and the six were the deep half of the offense on a night the deep half did not connect. The preview's baseline was the 12-a-game version, and 28 yards is below it; one game does not make a share. The Cowboys are home to Washington on Sunday the twentieth. The number to watch is still eight against six.
_Data via nflverse._
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