The Blitz: Picking and Choosing | Dallas Cowboys 2025

The Blitz: Picking and Choosing | Dallas Cowboys 2025

[Music] Goowboys. It’s no longer Slim Pickkins for the Cowboys at wide receiver 2. They hitch their wagon to George Pickkins. What does it mean for Dak CD in this Dallas offense? Let’s break it down on the Blitz starting now. Pops out to the right, breaks a tackle. They blitz it. Prescott throws it down the right side for Lamb. Caught [Applause] it. Back to throw. Rush. Sacked by Barson. Beltie snap. Prescott with plenty of time. Lops it in zone. Jake Ferguson. Things are happening here at the Star in Fris. Happy Mother’s Day everybody and welcome to the Blitz here inside the Globe Live studios at the Star Bill Jones along with Nicole Hutcherson. Kyle Yman’s will be along shortly. So much going on behind the scenes the last week. We had the ACM awards back on Thursday night. We had rookie mini camp last week. But stealing the headlines, the trade for George Pickins. He is a Dallas Cowboy. What was your reaction when you heard the news, Nicole? I was shocked. I woke up out of my bed at like 7 a.m. and I see on Twitter like George Pickkins is heading to the Cowboys. Okay, the Cowboys get their wide receiver at uh 7 a.m. in the morning. We’d love to see it. Yeah. And and now we know why the Cowboys didn’t draft a wide receiver in the draft, right? Absolutely. That was something that uh Jerry Jones had said. Pretty much the underlying message was just wait because it’s coming. And it came with George Pickins. I mean, you talk about a guy who had the highest yards per reception since 2023 with 16.7. Tied with Justin Jefferson also for most 20 plus air yards uh in the NFL. Edards catches, sorry, in the NFL, but I mean, this is a guy who brings so much. He plays with a lot of emotion. He’s a fiery competitor as well. Something that could probably bring some more out of CD Lamb. Uh not that CD Lamb needs any more of that either, but uh you’re getting just a lot more competition in that wide receiver room. something that I’m really looking forward to, Bill. All right. Well, we’ll have much more on George Pickkins coming up later here on the Blitz, but let’s kick things off and go behind the scenes exclusively here as Jerry Jones addressed the rookies at mini camp last week. I can’t tell you how much this is about right now for you. uh every drill, every practice is about right now. Because the biggest mistake I’ve ever seen any players make in your shoes is they thought, “Well, we’ll get it done this next month. We’ll get it done next year.” What have you. This is an urgent son of a gun here. Now, then be smart about where we go from here. Take advantage of the best I promise you that I can find anywhere in the world to coach you. That’s his staff sitting right here. That’s his people sitting right here. Personally, as well as as a organization, as a team, we need you to be smart and come in here and dig and go for it and get it out so we can line up against the Giants with you. Can you do that, sir? And you’re doing it for all of us when you do it. Congratulations on being a Dallas Cowboy. We’re proud of you. Proud, very proud of you. put your name on that script of being a great Cowboy and a great NFL player. Looking forward to get to knowing you individual. Thank you, coach. Work on three. One, two, three. Something you won’t see anywhere else. Uh that that’s some neat stuff to see what happens behind the scenes for those rookies. Absolutely. And they were locked into every single wear word Jerry Jones had to say. That’s what you want to see out of your rookie class for sure. All right, we’re just getting started on this edition of the Blitz. So, one of those rookies, we’re going to break him down. Savone Rebel. Yes, the Cowboys love having him here. But up next, Kyle Yman joins the show and we are talking George Pickkins, the newest Dallas Cowboy. The Dallas Cowboys Blitz presented by Blockchain.com is brought to you by AT&T, an official sponsor of the Dallas Cowboys, and by blockchain.com. Invest like your icons with blockchain.com. This segment is brought to you by AT&T, official sponsor of the Dallas Cowboys. This week in Cowboys history, one of the Dallas legends is celebrating a birthday. Quarterback Roger Stabbach turns 83. Later this year, 40 years will have passed since Dabbach was inducted into the Pro Football Hall of Fame after he led the Cowboys to the first two championships in Super Bowl 6 and Super Bowl 12. Always great to throw in the great Roger Stach as we return here to the Blitz and we’ve got Kyle Yman’s here to break down the big news of the week and that would be of course George Pickkins becoming a Dallas Cowboy. But you’re going really indepth on this one. Oh, this is going to be a lot of fun. And I’ve been excited to get a wide receiver too in the building and they did that. It wasn’t the only move they’ve made this off seasonason. Of course, they traded for Kenneth Murray, traded for Kyrie Elim, traded for Joe Milton. They’ve been busy in the trade market. Here’s the compensation. This is what Dallas got back. This is what Dallas sent out on the bottom in yellow. George Pickkins, they send a third round pick and then they pick swap on day three of the NFL draft to make sure he is good to go as your wide receiver, too. So, what does he bring, Bill Jones? What does he bring to the table? I have I have a sense that there might be a teleustrator that’s going to appear behind us here. There we go. Oh, there we go. Let’s see what he can do. And everybody talks about what he can do from a contested catch standpoint. Incredible what he can do from a yards after the catch standpoint. Really good in that regard. I want to talk about how he wins in really unusual ways. How about line of scrimmage? Not a crazy great route runner. He’s not the technician that Amari Cooper once was. Let’s take a look at him winning off the line of scrimmage. He’s going to give a little shimmy with his shoulders and then he bolts to the end zone. Let’s go ahead and play through this one. Ready? Stop. There’s the little shimmy. That’s all it was to get Sandstro off of his balance and then he’s able to take off. Finding open space in this zone defense getting into the end zone and having just a tad of separation. That’s all he needs. That is all he needs from separation. Not a great throw, but guess who makes the play? Horizontal to the ground. It is George Pickkins. Incredible hands. All he needs is a little separation. He’s going to do the rest. And the key there, he’s playing against the Washington Commanders. And that’s a really good quarterback. He was going up against the second round pick last year out of Michigan, Mike Sandra still. All right, you got another one to show us here. Yeah, one more to show you here. And there’s a couple different looks at this one. He’s at the bottom of your screen against the New York Jets. I love this play because deep threat ability is what Dallas has been missing. If we go ahead and press play, little play action from Russell Wilson. Wilson’s got plenty of time in the pocket. You see that little out route. It was just a go, but he knows where spacing is. Then he knows how to track the football. He goes back, finds the football, is able to establish physicality against the corner. He initiates contact on the sideline, not allowing this corner and Eckles to get back to the football to make a play on the football. And then because of that, a veteran move, just a little bit of a push off. He gets back to the football, adjust his body, torque, catch good, got both feet in bounds, actually landed in bounds all over the place. And this is not just a one time George Pickkins has done something like this on film. He does it multiple times. Let’s take another look at this just because it was a pretty grab. I saw him go, of course, horizontal on that last look of the the touchdown against the Commanders. He almost goes horizontal again here having to go back to the football, catches basically with his right hand, controls all the way to the ground. Huge game for Russell Wilson, the Pittsburgh Steelers, George Pickkins. Now he has an opportunity to do that type of work with Dak Prescott in Dallas. And and so then how does he fit with CD Lamb here? Well, that’s the thing is CD Lamb, a lot of what he gets is underneath the defense, finding the soft spot in zones, over the middle, yards after the catch, maybe even in the screen game. George Pickins, you want him running 10, 15, 20 yards downfield and allowing Dak Prescott to unleash it a little bit. You got to protect for Dak up front to allow George Pickkins to do the type of damage that George Pickins can give you. But that’s what you did with your first round pick. you go and get Tyler Booker to protect up front and now you have a deep threat ability in order to get George Pickkins the football deep into the secondary. I love the fit here because they’re both going to get targets and a lot of people have been confused about the way it’ll fit in a locker room. Both CD Lamb and George Pickins are going to get their fair share of targets because they’re both good enough to constitute that Tolbert Mingo and Turpin the back half of the wide receiver room. That’s where you’re going to have to have some load share on the back end. Give Pickings, give Lamb the opportunity. You can’t cover both at the same time. All right, Kyle’s going to stick around here. We’re going to flip it to the other side of the football. We’re going to take it one of the big rookies in this draft class. It is Savone Rebel. And how excited are the Cowboys to get this guy? This segment was brought to you by AT&T, official sponsor of the Dallas Cowboys. This segment is brought to you by Reliant, the official energy provider of the Dallas Cowboys. One more time, Siobhan Rebel comes up on again. Siobhan Rebel came screaming up. No matter who they put on Rebel tonight. All right, real fast. uh got a chance to uh see you out there in day two of rookie mini camp. Just how do you feel like you’re feeling right now? I’m feeling I’m I’m really excited. Tried to slip in through the little exercises, but you know, they kept the eye on me, but it was very exciting watching the boy um go out there and work. You know what I mean? You still got some I mean, of course, we got some work to do and some errors to clean up, but it was very exciting moment for me and the Blizz. Let me ask you something. What separates you from other quarterbacks in this draft class? I say my effort. You know, I’m willing to I’m willing to work. I’m willing to to give give the coaches all that I got 110%. And you hear that from a lot of people. A lot of players don’t say that, but that’s just one thing I feel like I’m not just talking. I I’ll show it on the field. Spoken from the Cowboys rookie third round pick in the 2025 NFL draft. And the Cowboys certainly needed a dog in that cornerback room. They feel like they got one in Savone Rebel. Let’s take a look inside the war room to get a deep dive into how it was leading up to the pick. I think what this guy is, number one, he’s a style. He’s got brother, he hits, he has press skills. He needs a little development off, but you rather have him pressed manto man skills first because that’s what we are primarily. This guy coming to compete, don’t worry about his style. He hits, he covers, he got top end speed when he’s healthy. He has all that. So, I like this guy. This guy’s got a lot of upside. And we’ve got Kyle Yman’s here to break down the film of Savone Rebel. Now, just take a listen to what they had to say about what he brings to this quarterback room. What does he bring, Kyle? Well, he does. He brings that man-to-man press element that you heard them talking about there. He is a sticky quarterback. He has the size, he has the length, he has the speed. The one question was health going into it. towards ACL in September. But based off of what we saw there from your interview with him on the the rookie mini camp days and then the amount of work that he had with the training staff, everything looks good for him to possibly be available. So, what are the Cowboys getting with Savone Revel? Let’s go back up here toward the top of the screen. There he is. Let’s go ahead and play through this a little bit. Just take a look at him early on. He’s going to make a little bit of contact, not a lot, and then he uses that sideline as an extra defender. If we pause it right here, this is not an easy throw for a quarterback to make because he has everything covered from that point in. Now he’s 100% going to time up his hit. He’s waiting, waiting, waiting. Perfect timing on top of it. He pushes through a defender. That ball jars loose. Incomplete pass against SMU in uh what at that point was a conference matchup, both being in the American. Now, if we press forward a little bit, what he can do from a physicality standpoint, this is him off the edge here. So, he’s almost in the box, almost playing like a a nickel or a box safety at this point. If we go ahead and play through, watch how willing he is to get in the mix. They’re going to toss this ball out to the right on the offensive side. Charlotte has no idea he’s got the coverage ability, good physicality on the edge. When Brian Shottenheimimer was asked about cornerbacks in the NFL draft, he wanted guys that were not only going to be good from a coverage standpoint, which Savone Rebels Jr. does that very, very well, but he wants somebody that’s going to be physical, willing to come up and hit an individual. You saw that time in timeout in his American film, what he was able to do in the American Athletic Conference. And if he’s healthy, he could do that for an NFL team as well. And the Cowboys are lucky enough to have snagged him in the third round. Now, let me ask you something real fast. What separates him from other guys in this quarterback room? Well, he has that sides speed length combo, but he’s a little bit more polished than maybe even some of the other rookies that are coming out in this year’s NFL draft. It’s just the health. I think if it wasn’t for that ACL tear in midepptember, he would have been in the first round conversation. He was still in the second and third round conversation even with that out of a a nonp power five school, power four school in East Carolina. He showed loyalty by staying there. He had opportunities to go and play in SEC country, a couple SEC schools, offering up to half a million dollars in NIL initiatives to go and get him. He said, “Forget that. I’m going to play with East Carolina.” And it ended up paying out for him. If I’m getting offered a half a million dollars, I don’t know. With that one, I’d probably take it, but he obviously did. Jump change for Nicole Hutcherson. Simone Rebel looking to make some noise in this rookie class and on this team. But how about Jaden Blue? The running back battle is going to be a lot interesting in training camp. Can he give those guys the blues? That’s up next. This segment was brought to you by Reliant, the official energy provider of the Dallas Cowboys. A new look to that Dallas Cowboy running back room this off season. Some of the new names and we will familiarize you with some of the new faces here as the blitz continues. Bill Jones along with Nicole Hutcherson. And how about Nicole? We start with the the ones who have arrived that are new. And of course, it all started in free agency with the likes of Javvante Williams and Miles Sanders and then in the draft with Jaden Blue. It’s going to be a running back by committee here. Yeah. Well, we sure will see. Uh you’re looking at a guy like Javvante Williams who brings the most experience out of this running back room. Four years of course. Uh but the only thing about him is that you haven’t seen much production since his 2022 season where he he had almost 900 yards rushing on the ground uh just because of his knee injury. So, you don’t really know necessarily what you’re going to get out of him. Same thing with Miles Sanders. Same thing with uh Jaden Blue, the newest rookie, just because none of these guys have carried the load and done a lot of workload for their prospective teams. But I think that one of the ones that brings the most exciting excitement is of course Jaden Blue. His speed, his explosive ability, uh ability to make plays in space as well and also be a weapon in the passing game. his blocking as well. Uh something that can be very tangible for this team. So, it’s a lot of unknown here in this running back room, but it’s going to be an exciting competition come training camp. And I I don’t discount incumbents here as well. And we did mention Hunter Lipkkey, who obviously can fullback, running back, Hback, whatever. And also Duce Vaughn and Duce now going into his third season. I don’t discount the fact that Deuce can be a player on this team, too. He sure can. Uh but you have to look at what Hunter Lipkkey brings. He’s more he was used kind of as a tight end last year. Lunda Wells seeing some good things out of him. He can make plays in the passing game. Uh he’s also a third down guy as well. So in my eyes, it kind of puts uh Deuce Vaughn a little bit on a notice uh just because you have a couple of guys in that room who can do the same things that uh Duce Vaughn can do. So if it were me, I think that Honey Lipkkey brings a little bit more value than Dawn. You know what? I think everybody’s on notice in that running back room. It’s going to make for a very interesting training camp because there’s some there’s some competition that’s going to be going on for those running back spots on this team. All right, when we return in just a moment, we still got time left as we go into the community. Cowboys doing some great work in the art community in Arlington. Close captioning is brought to you by the Texas Lottery. Dallas Cowboys scratch tickets from the Texas Lottery are here. Play today. To watch more Dallas Cowboys content on your connected TV, download the Cowboys Now app on Amazon Fire, Roku, and Apple TV. The Dallas Cowboys Blitz presented by Blockchain.com was brought to you by AT&T, an official sponsor of the Dallas Cowboys, and by blockchain.com. Invest like your icons with blockchain.com. Last couple of minutes here of the Blitz and let’s take you out to Arlington where Charlotte Jones and the Cowboys were celebrating the Arlington ISD art program this month. Welcome everyone to AT&T Stadium and we are so excited to have all the fifth graders and the eighth graders and seniors. On Thursday, May 1st, the Dallas Cowboys and Waterburger hosted Arlington ISD fifth and eighth grade students as well as graduating seniors and their parents at the Dallas Cowboys Arlington ISD art program reception. Waterburger loves being a part of the Arlington ISD arts program. Get to celebrate the pieces of art created by these students and give students scholarships. The program serves to promote art appreciation at pivotal ages, celebrate graduating art students, and provide scholarship opportunities. It’s really cool to see here at AT&T Stadium because, you know, I never expected to be here. Starting from art one, I was literally just like, this is just going to be a thing, maybe like a mini hobby, but this is like surreal to me. This is the biggest thing I’ve ever done. It is such an honor. It’s just so tedious. And to see it all put together and all these people in here, it is so She’s so amazing. It’s a really honor. Gan and Jerry Jones have committed to donate $16.5 million to youth programs in Arlington, Texas. Miss Jones is a big supporter of the arts and for her to reach out and partner with us is an absolute dream for us because we realize that supporting our community and through the Cowboys we are giving our kids endless opportunities. for the Dallas Cowboys Blitz. I’m Pamela Jagger Purcell. And we should say that is former Dallas Cowboys cheerleader Pamela Jagger Purcell reporting there. Love what the Cowboys do at the Arlington ISD. Yeah, and Waterburger actually gave uh scholarships worth $7,000, $5,000, and also $2,500 to seniors who participated. So, that’s always unique as well. All right, we’re out of time on this edition of the Blitz. For Kyle Yman’s and Nicole Hutcherson, I’m Bill Jones. We appreciate you joining us this week and we will see you again next week here on the Blitz.

The Cowboys have traded for wide receiver George Pickens to bolster their receiving room for 2025. How does the move change their roster outlook? Bill Jones, Nicole Hutchison and Kyle Youmans breaks it down.

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