George Pickens — Week 3: Eleven Targets, Eighty-Two Yards
2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 28
Pickens drew a game-high 11 targets and caught 7 for 82 yards and four first downs, converting third and ten and third and eight in the second half. His last two targets, on first and goal from the Baltimore 2 with 23 seconds left and third and goal from the 5 with 14 left, fell incomplete, and Dallas kicked the tying field goal, in a 34–31 loss to the Ravens in Rio de Janeiro.
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31 to 28, Ravens, 23 seconds left, first and goal at the Baltimore two after a 20-yard pass interference penalty. Dak Prescott threw short right to George Pickens, incomplete. A false start and a two-yard Prescott scramble made it third and goal at the five with 14 seconds left, and Prescott threw short right to Pickens again, incomplete. The two throws cost Dallas about nine and 10 points of win probability — the chance of winning the game after the play against before it. Brandon Aubrey tied it from 23 yards, and Baltimore won it with a 56-yard field goal on the final snap.
The line: 11 targets, seven catches, 82 yards, four first downs, no touchdown, +5.1 expected points added on his targets — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position. The catches: 13 on the opening drive to the Baltimore 37; four and five in the first half; 12 on the first snap of the second half; 13 on third and 19, six short, before a blocked field goal try; 19 on third and 10 at the Dallas 48 with two 55 left in the third, down 24 to 13, with a roughing-the-passer penalty added, on the drive that ended in Jake Ferguson's touchdown; and 16 on third and eight at the Baltimore 25 with 10 27 left, to the nine, the snap before KaVontae Turpin's go-ahead touchdown run. The incompletions were the throw just before that one, the second snap of the final drive, and the two at the goal line. A 20-yard catch on third and nine in the third quarter came back on a holding penalty. Three targets before halftime, eight after. Four came on third down: three caught, two converted.
11 targets were 28 percent of Prescott's 40 throws, the most of any receiver in the game, ahead of eight each to CeeDee Lamb and Ryan Flournoy. His 82 yards were third in the game behind Lamb's hundred 12 and Zay Flowers's 84.
Back in June the preview split Pickens's first Dallas season in two: four games without Lamb, when he piled up 427 yards as the top option, and 13 with him, when he was a complementary piece. Week 1 was six targets, three catches, 28 yards, with all three deep throws his way incomplete. Week 2 was eight targets, six catches, 40 yards. Sunday was the most targets and yards of his three games. Three games, all with Lamb in the lineup: 25 targets, 16 catches, a hundred 50 yards, no touchdown, against Lamb's 309. The volume is climbing; the split the preview drew is holding so far. Dallas is at the Texans on Sunday the fourth.
_Data via nflverse._
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