The Pittsburgh Steelers have traded away one of their top wide receivers in George Pickens, which now has the team searching for a replacement.
To be quite frank, it’s going to be impossible to find a No. 2 wide receiver across from DK Metcalf who offers the kind of upside Pickens did, which is why it’s difficult to stomach the trade Pittsburgh just made with the Dallas Cowboys.
Following the Pickens trade, people have naturally speculated that the Steelers may bring in one of Aaron Rodgers’ many buddies, seeing as how the team is all in on him and he has a history of lobbying his teams to bring in targets he knows and trusts.
Well, let the games begin — according to Pro Football Talk’s Mike Florio, a trade for former Green Bay Packers and current New York Jets wide receiver Allen Lazard is “in play” for Pittsburgh.
“Per a source with knowledge of the situation, Jets receiver Allen Lazard is ‘in play’ to be traded to the Steelers,” he wrote. “Why Lazard? Because Rodgers completely and totally trusts him. And Lazard, for whatever reason, performs much better with Rodgers than he does without him. (At one point during his first year in New York, during Rodgers’s season-long injury absence, Lazard became a healthy scratch).”
After their days together in Green Bay, Lazard and Rodgers reunited with the Jets in 2023, although they only played one season together because of the latter’s Achilles injury in his first season with Gang Green.
In 2024, Lazard posted the second-best numbers of his career, with 530 yards and six touchdowns. Lazard’s two other best seasons came in 2021 and 2022, when he was catching passes from Rodgers, also.
Would Lazard give the Steelers the sexy one-two punch they had with Metcalf and Pickens? Certainly not, but he’d still amount to a sizeable upgrade for a Steelers receivers room that doesn’t have much behind Metcalf.
It looked like Lazard’s day might be numbered in New York after the team cut his buddy loose earlier this offseason, but the veteran wideout actually took a pay cut from $11 million to $2.5 million to stay with the team.
But it’s not like Lazard is untouchable and the Jets would likely be willing to part ways with him to pick up another draft pick as the franchise rebuilds. And, at just $2.5 million, Lazard would be a total bargain for Pittsburgh.
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