Dallas Cowboys wide receiver George Pickens is on a mission to erase narrative that he's a locker-room problem.
FRISCO - Perception, somebody once said, is everything.
The Pittsburgh Steelers folks who insist that George Pickens was a problem they needed to rid themselves of? They aren't lying; they are telling their truth.
But the Dallas Cowboys folks who insist that Pickens, acquired in trade from the Steelers, has so far been an "all-smiles'' teammate and an "incredible'' student to work with?
The Cowboys aren't lying, either.
And Cowboys Nation hopes Pickens himself isn't just telling "his truth,'' but rather ...
The Truth.
“I’m actually like a chill guy," Pickens said on Tuesday as we were allowed inside The Star to watch OTAs practice. "There’s a big phase of a tornado that’s not even true. I’m a chill guy and I just love to work.''
The work was never the question, same as the talent.
The chill? That can obviously come and go, as we have all seen on the field over the course of his three years with the Steelers, a time during which the 24-year-old has exhibited both big-time playmaking abilities and a series of team-damaging emotional outbursts.
The "rap sheet''? Last season, he was fined seven times for an assortment of stupid moves, including face-mask fouls and taunting and obscene gestures, unsportsmanlike conduct.
Isn't that the "tornado''?
That's George's word, not ours ... and it does speak to the aforementioned (which again, we've all seen) and to the behind-the-curtain rumors of habitual tardiness in Pittsburgh ... late to meetings, late to the locker room on game days, late to getting on the team plane and therefore holding up flights.
That's tornadic activity.
The Cowboys traded a third-round draft pick for a player on the final year of a contract. Pickens' "prove-it'' set-up is not about ability, but rather about maturation.
How do stop a "tornado''? That - not "perception'' - is now the Dallas Cowboys reality.
