ESPN Talk Show Discusses Dak Prescott’s Training Camp Rapport With New Signing George Pickens. There’s Just One Problem

NFL training camps have begun, meaning that the first steps towards the upcoming football season are officially underway. And, despite not being as televised as preseason games are, offseason camps provide media, pundits, and fans with a ton of material to talk about. And the Dallas Cowboys have no shortage of talking points.

For one, Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott suffered a hamstring injury in 2024 that required surgery and ended his season halfway through. With Prescott out for half the season, the Cowboys struggled, finishing with a 7-10 record and missing the playoffs (obviously). But 2025 is shaping up to be a new day for Dallas. Dak is relatively healthy going into training camp, and their latest addition to the WR room could be a game changer.

After the Pittsburgh Steelers acquired receiver DK Metcalf from the Seattle Seahawks in exchange for a draft picks, they dealt former draft pick and highly touted (but unpredictable) receiver George Pickens and a sixth-rounder to Dallas for a future third and fifth-round pick. And, if ESPN’s First Take were to be believed, Prescott and Pickens already look poised to give the NFC East a whole bunch of issues this season.

In a video that preceded talk about the Cowboys’ 2025 NFL campaign, First Take showed off a clip of Prescott seemingly connecting with Pickens on a touchdown pass. There’s only one problem… Pickens didn’t catch the pass. And that’s not even the whole story!

ESPN Erroneously Identifies Cowboys Receiver As George Pickens

As mentioned, First Take showed a clip that was presented as being George Pickens catching a TD pass in training camp. As we’ve already established, Pickens isn’t the receiver in the video. In fact, the video’s not even from this year and was instead taken from training camp prior to the 2024 season. There’s actually no way the video could’ve even come from this year’s training camp, as the Cowboys only began camp today.

MLFootball posted a clip of the gaffe on X, and predictably, people roasted ESPN and First Take for their mistake. In response, First Take host Molly Qerim would later apologize for the mistake. “Earlier, we showed video that we identified as George Pickens at Cowboys training camp. It was not George, so we apologize on that mistake,” Qerim said while live on air.

Even after the apology, it doesn’t seem people were too sympathetic to ESPN’s mistake. Then again, sports shows committed to hot takes and next to nothing in the way of data analysis have already become somewhat of a sore spot amongst sports fans. So, I can’t say that this kind of response is out of left field.