ESPN’s latest edition of its positional rankings as voted on by NFL scouts, coaches and executives,<\/a> both Pickens and Lamb cracked the top 10 wide receivers in the league.<\/p>\nLamb slid a bit from his No. 4 ranking in 2025 down to No. 6. His highest ranking was No. 3 and the lowest voter had Lamb outside the top 10. Meanwhile Pickens made the top 10 for the first time and is slotted right behind Lamb at No. 7. The highest vote for Pickens was No. 5.<\/p>\n
Read what ESPN’s Jeremy Fowler wrote on each wideout below, including some quotes from people around the NFL. One NFL coordinator even intimated that Pickens is Dallas’ No. 1 receiver and not Lamb.<\/p>\n
No. 6 CeeDee Lamb<\/p>\n
Fowler: Lamb is coming off his worst statistical season since he was a rookie in 2020. He dealt with an early-season ankle issue and never quite took off, finishing with 1,077 yards and three touchdowns. Usually an after-the-catch standout, his 322 yards after the catch were down for his standards, too. And his eight drops tied for second in the NFL behind Travis Kelce.<\/p>\n
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Even so, the goodwill he has built over six seasons helped him in the voting. He’s still a game breaker and appeared on all but one ballot.<\/p>\n
“With his ability to separate and make big plays, the attention he demands creates opportunities for others in the offense,” an NFC scout said. “He’s still on the short list of guys who give you problems consistently.”<\/p>\n
Lamb’s 571 receptions are the fifth most in the NFL since 2020 and already the third most in Cowboys history, as he passed Dez Bryant last season.<\/p>\n
“I expect him to have a bounce-back year,” an NFL coordinator said. “He was never quite the same [last year] off that ankle injury.”<\/p>\n
No. 7 George Pickens<\/p>\n
Fowler: One NFL coordinator did not hesitate when asked which Cowboys receiver is No. 1 on opposing game plans.<\/p>\n
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“It’s Pickens,” the coordinator said. “He has emerged.”<\/p>\n
While Lamb still attracts a lot of attention from defenses — and is ranked one spot higher on this list — Pickens broke out in 2025 with 93 catches, 1,429 yards and nine touchdowns. His five games with at least 125 receiving yards tied for the most in a single season in franchise history.<\/p>\n
“One of the best I’ve ever seen at the contested catch,” a veteran NFL offensive coach said. “There’s such untapped ability there. It’s just a consistency issue and where his head’s at week to week.”<\/p>\n
His 10.4 yards per target ranked second in the NFL, and his 2.27 yards after first contact per possession topped all receivers with 100 or more targets. For his career, Pickens averages 16.0 yards per catch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dallas Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens (3) celebrates with wide receiver CeeDee Lamb (88) after scoring on a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":946695,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2066],"tags":[1101,230,229,257,2461,7,6,120705,115839],"class_list":["post-946694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-dallas-cowboys","tag-article","tag-cowboys","tag-dallas","tag-dallas-cowboys","tag-dallascowboys","tag-football","tag-nfl","tag-tp-ceedee-lamb","tag-tp-george-pickens"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nfl\/116927225457744309","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=946694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/946694\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/946695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=946694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=946694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=946694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}