Expectations for rookie wide receiver CeeDee Lamb are sky high. He will wear the famed No. 88, joining the likes of Drew Pearson, Michael Irvin and Dez Bryant in Dallas Cowboys lore. He ranks sixth in terms of odds of winning NFL Offensive Rookie of the Year at +1500. And now NFL.com’s Cynthia Frelund is projecting Lamb to be the most productive first-year receiver in the league.
But how much room is there for a rookie wide receiver in a room that already holds veterans Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup? And what would it take for Lamb to outstrip his draft class in terms of numbers?
Here’s what the best rookie wideout from each season have been able to put up over the last decade:
| Player | Year | Team | Tar | Rec | Yards | TD |
| Mike Williams | 2010 | TAM | 129 | 65 | 964 | 11 |
| A.J. Green | 2011 | CIN | 115 | 65 | 1057 | 7 |
| Justin Blackmon | 2012 | JAX | 132 | 64 | 865 | 5 |
| Keenan Allen | 2013 | SDG | 105 | 71 | 1046 | 8 |
| Odell Beckham Jr. | 2014 | NYG | 130 | 91 | 1305 | 12 |
| Amari Cooper | 2015 | OAK | 130 | 72 | 1070 | 6 |
| Michael Thomas | 2016 | NOR | 121 | 92 | 1137 | 9 |
| JuJu Smith-Schuster | 2017 | PIT | 79 | 58 | 917 | 7 |
| Calvin Ridley | 2018 | ATL | 92 | 64 | 821 | 10 |
| A.J. Brown | 2019 | TEN | 84 | 52 | 1051 | 8 |
| Average | 112 | 69.4 | 1023.3 | 8.3 |
Hitting the average would require around 70 catches for over 1000 yards and eight touchdowns. Those are lofty goals to say the least. Though the numbers have settled down over the last three years, the averages are mouth-dropping. The 112 targets the aforementioned receivers have averaged is just under both Cooper and Gallup’s totals from last year, 119 and 113 respectively.
It’s not certain Lamb will get to that kind of total, though there is a clear path to do so. The Cowboys ranked 10th in pass attempts in 2019, with a total of 597. 166 of those attempts were to players who’ve departed in free agency. Randall Cobb, who defected to the Houston Texans, and future Hall of Fame tight end Jason Witten, now of the Las Vegas Raiders each had 83 passes come their way.
It’s hard to imagine Prescott targeting Cooper and Gallup less, so Lamb would have to assume the entirety of Cobb’s 2019 targets and nearly half of Witten’s. That would make three different receivers with a staggering 112 targets each.
That leaves two questions: how often has that happened and how does that help an offense? Not often, as it turns out. According to Pro Football Reference, there’s only been 11 such instances since 1992. Here’s the complete list:
| Team | Year | Off DVOA | Rank |
| New England Patriots | 2011 | 31.9% | 3 |
| St. Louis Rams | 2000 | 26.7% | 1 |
| Atlanta Falcons | 1995 | 14.4% | 7 |
| New England Patriots | 2014 | 13.5% | 6 |
| Atlanta Falcons | 2012 | 6.1% | 12 |
| Dallas Cowboys | 2012 | 6.1% | 11 |
| Baltimore Ravens | 2006 | 0.9% | 15 |
| New York Jets | 2000 | -0.1% | 17 |
| Chicago Bears | 2014 | -0.1% | 14 |
| New England Patriots | 1994 | -0.8% | 13 |
| Arizona Cardinals | 1996 | -4.2% | 20 |
| Average | 8.6% | 10.81 |
Having three players eat up that many targets is rare, but it does often indicate an effective offense. Just one of these teams were below league average using using Football Outsiders’ DVOA metric which judges teams while adjusting for performance.
Lamb winding up the most productive receiver of the 2020 draft class would likely require supreme efficiency in less targets than the usual suspects receive. That’s not out of the question by any means as he’ll rarely face the opposing team’s top flight cornerback given the depth in the room.
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