Coming into this Dallas Cowboys season, it was expected that the run game could struggle, the offensive line might show its youth and the defense may take time to adjust to a new coordinator.
But of all the Cowboys’ struggles this season, the most unexpected is perhaps a disconnect between the usually in sync Dak Prescott and CeeDee Lamb. Did Lamb’s contract holdout from training camp have anything to do with that?
“Absolutely,” Lamb told former Dallas coach Jason Garrett Friday for NBC’s Football Night in America. “I’m gonna be truthful, and I will say, it’s not gonna be just a pickup from what we were at the end of the season last year.”
Lamb has 467 receiving yards on 32 catches in six games. While he’s still averaging the eighth-most yards per game in the league, he just commanded the second-largest contract for a receiver in league history after averaging over 100 yards per game in 2023. The dip in production this season is especially consequential for the Cowboys because of their league-worst run game. Still, he remains confident they’ll figure it out.
“But with everything, the work that we’ve had built up, we’ll be fine,” he said.
Former quarterback Troy Aikman recently criticized the Cowboys receivers for running bad routes and being “lazy,” singling out Lamb as WR1 and his lack of practice. Garrett asked about the comments and Lamb responded.
“Me as a leader, obviously, I take it in and we got to work. I use it as a building block. If you say our routes are lazy, let’s go out here every week, and I’m going to show you that my routes, you know,” he said.
“I take that as constructive criticism. You can’t really take everything personal in this realm of work that we do, especially some things that we can control. So if we can control it, let’s go out here, work at it and continue to get better at it.”
Lamb also conceded that he didn’t have an explanation for the Cowboys’ sudden turn from one of the NFL’s best home teams to winless at AT&T Stadium this season, but emphasized that if they work on the small things they can retake control of games. Garrett pointed out that he doesn’t think Dallas has been as physical as in past seasons.
“I agree,” Lamb said. “We’re not oblivious to the truth now. We understand the things that we have to correct, and week in and week out, we’re looking to correct it, and we’ve been harping on it. ... We can’t make all those changes in one week, granted.”
The theme of the interview was accountability, which Lamb took in spades while also focusing on what the Cowboys can do moving forward.
“Whatever happens, I’m part of the reason,” he said. “And I want to be part of the solution as well.”
Find more Cowboys coverage from The Dallas Morning News here.
