Philadelphia Eagles: Get to know rising prospect George Pickens

As the 2022 NFL Draft inches closer and closer, storylines for the Philadelphia Eagles and across the NFL are starting to come into focus.

The Jacksonville Jaguars have reportedly received very little interest from teams looking to trade up, Derek Stingley Jr. is flying up draft boards, with Matt Miller believing he could go as high as pick three, and Georgia defensive tackle Devonte Wyatt has apparently fallen off of multiple draft boards including that of the Pittsburgh Steelers due to off-field concerns about his character.

Some players have watched their stock fall, like Notre Dame’s Kyle Hamilton, while others, like Cincinnati CB Sauce Gardner, have steadily watched their stock inch higher and higher with each passing day, but no player has received more last-minute hype than Georgia wide receiver George Pickens, who went from a near-lock to go on Day 2 to a player an increasing number of fans would like to see suit up in midnight green this fall.

But who is this rapidly rising receiver out of Georgia, and should the Philadelphia Eagles place him in the same category as Drake London, Garrett Wilson, Chris Oliva, and Treylon Burks? Well, let’s attempt to find out.

George Pickens is a tricky evaluation for the Philadelphia Eagles.

As a freshman, George Pickens looked like a legitimate number 1 wide receiver in the NFL, the USFL, the XFL, or any other professional football league that pops up across the globe. His 6-foot-3, 200-pound frame immediately jumped off the tape, as did his ability to separate against the best corners the SEC had to offer.

His catch radius was expansive, his ability to embrace contact was among the best collegiate sports had to offer, and any 50-50 ball thrown his way was really more of an 80-20 ball, and that may be generous.

Surely, had things stayed on track, Pickens would have been a first-round pick, no doubt, and joined a fraternity of ex-Georgia Bulldogs who became household names in the NFL.

… unfortunately, that isn’t what happened. No, Pickens’ 2020 season was limited to just eight largely underwhelming games for a Georgia team still reeling from the loss of quarterback Jake Fromm and his 2021 season was even more abbreviated, as he played just 63 offensive snaps following a spring ACL tear that cost him all but four games.

While Pickens was able to take part in a good bit of the tests administered at the 2022 NFL Draft Combine, including running a 4.47 40 yard dash, a 33-inch vertical, and a 125-inch broad jump, he hasn’t played a full game of football in almost two years, and there are very legitimate questions as to how smoothly he’ll transition from the college ranks to the NFL.

If Pickens can recapture his freshman glory, then yeah, there’s little reason to worry about his prospects as a pro. Had he turned in a 1,000-yard season in 2021 with tape that looked exactly like his efforts in 2019, folks would be calling Pickens the premier X receiver in this year’s class, and some would be calling on teams to select him over the likes of Treylon Burks and London Drake, who both project as hybrid X/slot options, but what if his tape looks more like 2020, which was still good but not great? What if the effects of his ACL tear linger into 2022, and he struggles to transition from the NCAA to the NFL? X wide receivers don’t often have easy catch schemes up for them at the line of scrimmages like flankers or slot receivers, so any struggles to get open down the field likely won’t be mitigated with easy catches underneath.

That, my friends, is the question Howie Roseman and company will have to answer.

Considering his tape in 2020 and his injury-robbed season in 2021, it’s pretty hard to sneak Pickens into a top-18 players list even if you remove quarterbacks from the equation. I personally have Pickens as my WR 6 behind the usual suspects but before Jahan Dotson and Skyy Moore, but think get could easily sneak into the mid-20s for some lucky playoff team in need of some additional talent on the outside. But at 18? When players like Andrew Booth, Devin Lloyd, and Kaiir Elam are still on the board? I just don’t see it, especially with the amount of quality wide receivers who could still be on the board at pick 51.

Who knows, maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the Philadelphia Eagles view George Perkins as their WR 1, 2, or even 3, and will happily make him the 18th overall pick after selecting a player like Jordan Davis at 15. That’s the beauty of this time of the year, folks; you never know what is going to happen until it actually happens.