Cowboys roster ranks 3rd in value; Lamb, Bland make ‘best value’ team

From @ToddBrock24f7: CeeDee Lamb and DaRon Bland were the top values at their respective positions in 2023, while 8 other Cowboys made the top 10 at theirs.

The world-weary cynics within Cowboys Nation firmly believe that, at least to the Jones family, finishing the season strong in dollars and cents is way more important than wins and losses.

On the field, Dallas didn’t make it out of the wild-card round. But financially, the front office finished almost at the top of the league when it comes to the overall value they got out of their players this season.

Spotrac has determined their 2023 Team Value Rankings using scores calculated for each player on the league’s rosters. Individually, a player’s cumulative production is factored against his average annual salary, and the resulting score (out of 100) offers a look at how much bang a player provides for his buck.

Do that for everybody, and it becomes clear which teams make their money work the hardest come gametime.

San Francisco led the NFL with a “True Value Score” (TVS) of 99.56, while Baltimore came in second with 95.11. The Cowboys finished in third place with 91.38. No other team scored in the 90s. (Within the NFC East, Philadelphia finished 16th with 52.48, the Giants were 28th at 16.44, and Washington ended 31st with 6.11.)

Using players’ individual scores, Spotrac also assembled their “Best Value” roster, spotlighting the player with the highest TVS at each position. The Dallas was one of four teams to put two players in the hypothetical starting lineup; eight other Cowboys made the top 10 at their positions.

Here’s a look at who was named the absolute best value at their spot, as well as which players on the team still gave great production at a nice price.

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CeeDee Lamb moves way up the NFL record books

From @Cdburnett7: Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb’s hot streak continued in Week 18 as he moved up the NFL record books in single-season receiving yards.

The records keep coming for Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb. After eclipsing Hall of Famer Michael Irvin’s single-season franchise marks for receptions and yards, he moved up the NFL records in Week 18.

Lamb came into the final regular season game with 1,651 receiving yards, which is No. 19 in league history. He proceeded to continue the season-long heater, making 13 catches for 98 yards and two touchdowns in the dominant 38-10 victory.

Sunday’s performance moves him up to 1,749 yards, which makes it the eighth-most receiving yards in a season in NFL history, according to Pro Football Reference. Some may put an asterisk since it came in 17 games, but it’s the new norm. And with the way the Cowboys have buried games early and often this season, the numbers could be higher.

On top of that impressive mark, Lamb added to the record books in other ways during the Dallas victory.

Lamb’s fourth season has proved to be his best, and there is no doubt that he’s one of the league’s finest receivers. The momentum continues for the Cowboys No. 1 receiver as the team awaits their wild card matchup in AT&T Stadium as the No. 2 seed.

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CeeDee Lamb selected for drug test after monster performance in Cowboys win

From @ToddBrock24f7: After a night that saw him break franchise records and set new career highs, the WR was ordered by the league to submit to a drug test.

Cowboys receiver CeeDee Lamb had a monster performance in Week 17, establishing two new franchise records and logging career-best numbers in multiple categories in a 20-19 Dallas win.

The NFL apparently wondered if there was more to it than Lamb’s natural talent.

Lamb took to social media late Saturday night to share a notice he received from the league immediately after the game, ordering the 24-year-old to submit to a supposedly-random test for performance-enhancing substances.

Lamb recorded 13 receptions for 227 yards, both new single-game highs for the fourth-year man out of Oklahoma. His 17 targets tied his single-outing best, a mark he set just a month prior in a win over Seattle.

And he did it while setting new Cowboys franchise records for most receptions (122) and most receiving yards (1,651) in a season. He outdid three-time Super Bowl champ and Hall of Famer Michael Irvin in both categories. Irvin, who set those marks during his 1995 campaign, was on hand at AT&T Stadium to help celebrate former coach Jimmy Johnson’s induction into the Cowboys’ Ring of Honor.

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Numerous single-season records have fallen around the league since the regular season was expanded to 17 games in 2021, giving players one extra opportunity to compile stats. What makes Lamb’s record-setting season all the more impressive, though, is that he surpassed Irvin in 16 games, the same number of outings the Playmaker had in ’95.

“I told you I’d enjoy it more if we won,” Lamb told reporters after the game went final. “That we did.”

And Lamb no doubt went on to enjoy the thrilling record-setting win as promised. Even if it also meant producing a urine sample.

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Cowboys’ CeeDee Lamb aiming for wins over best receiving stats of career

From @ToddBrock24f7: Despite nearing personal bests in most categories, Lamb says getting wins- this week in Buffalo and then beyond- is most important to him.

CeeDee Lamb is closing in on a career year. The Cowboys receiver currently ranks third in the league in receiving yards (1,253) and third in total receptions (96). He’s tied for seventh in targets (131) and tied for fourth in touchdowns (8). And he’s on the cusp of setting new personal-best marks in all four of those categories.

But ask the fifth-year vet which stat is most satisfying to him, and his answer is none of the above.

Despite doing enough so far this season to easily earn a third Pro Bowl nod, the former first-round draft pick is exponentially more focused on playing in the game after all-star weekend.

But in order for Lamb and the Cowboys to reach Super Bowl LVII, they’ll more than likely to have to pull off a series of difficult road wins in the postseason. So they’re treating this Sunday’s trip to Buffalo as a preparatory mission.

“I feel like we’ve got to bring our own music,” Lamb said this week of taking the team’s 9-3 record to Highmark Stadium in Orchard Park to face the Bills. “Obviously, we’re going to be in a hostile environment, so we’re not going to get as much praise for making big plays. But we kind of have got to make that the new norm, just being in an away format.”

Some away games, though, are about more than the plane ride and the hotel and the unfamiliar surroundings at the stadium. This Sunday, the Cowboys will also have to deal with Old Man Winter. And while the forecast isn’t calling for the heavy snows or sub-arctic temperatures that have beset many a team’s mid-December visit to “B-Lo,” the Cowboys are gearing up nonetheless for a very damp and wet afternoon.

“Obviously, the ball is going to be wet,” Lamb explained. “But just taking care of the ball is the main thing.”

To that end, some members of the Dallas offense were spotted doing wet ball drills at practice this week, dunking their hands in buckets of ice water and catching drippy, slippy passes.

“Mentally, it’s all about preparation,” said Lamb. “And physically, obviously, it’s just going out, doing it and executing the right way and not really being lackadaisical with our focus. Look the ball in, hold the ball high and tight, things of that nature.”

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Those are all things Lamb has done better this season than ever before. Having passed Miles Austin a couple weeks ago to take over the No. 8 spot on the franchise’s all-time receiving yardage list, Lamb is about to set a new slew of single-season highs for himself. He needs 26 more targets, 12 more catches, two more touchdowns, and 107 more receiving yards to establish new career marks in each of those categories, and he has four more games to get there.

But back to asking him to pick the stat that means the most to him.

“A win,” Lamb says simply. “That’s the most important to me, to be honest.”

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CeeDee Lamb’s gloves make Hall of Fame after record-setting performance vs Giants

From @ToddBrock24f7: The Cowboys WR’s third straight game with 10+ catches and 150+ yards earned some of his game-day gear a special spot in Canton.

CeeDee Lamb’s hands have been on an unprecedented hot streak. So hot, in fact, that the gloves he wore while setting an NFL record last Sunday have made their way to Canton for a special display at the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

With an 11-catch, 151-yard performance in Week 10 versus the Giants, the Cowboys wide receiver became the first player in league history to log double-digit receptions and 150-plus receiving yards in three consecutive games. He had previously tallied 12 catches for 158 yards in Week 8 against the Rams and 11 catches for 191 yards in the very next contest against the Eagles.

Now his gloves and towel from the record-setting 49-17 win are on display in the Hall’s “Pro Football Today” gallery.

But getting Lamb a spot in the record books required special effort on the Cowboys’ part. Up 42-7 as the fourth quarter began, Dallas coaches made plans to start pulling their starters. But when word spread along the sideline that Lamb needed one more catch and eight more yards to make history, the first-round draft pick was allowed stay in the game long enough to hit the magic numbers.

“How many times are you in a position like that?” head coach Mike McCarthy said of the decision as he spoke with reporters afterward. “I’ll tell you what, you feel worse as a coach if I had would have walked in there and you’d be asking me, ‘Why the hell didn’t you leave him out there for nine yards?’ Because I’ve had it happen before. I think this league is so competitive, when you are in that position, I think it’s the respect that you should show to the player, to accomplish that record.”

According to the Hall of Fame, only eight other players have ever posted those receiving milestones in even back-to-back games. And despite the pass-happy style of play in today’s NFL, it’s happened just three times in the past 25 years, making this first-ever “three-fer” an even more impressive achievement.

“It’s very meaningful,” Lamb said about his recent record-setting run. “It obviously means I’m doing something correct and all of the hard work is paying off, but the hard work still isn’t done.”

The fourth-year receiver was correct to point out that the team still has eight games left in the regular season, and- hopefully- a deep playoff run after that. While Lamb obviously won’t be able to keep the streak going indefinitely, Cowboys coaches and players know that he has to remain a huge part of any success the offense hopes to have, even as opposing defenses scheme ways to shut him down.

“He’s just amazing,” offensive coordinator Brian Schottenheimer said this week. “[The Giants] were trying to double him. And if you watch some of the things that he’s doing- at the line of scrimmage, releasing, and things like that- even when he’s doubled… We believe that even if a guy is doubled, it doesn’t mean they can cover him.”

Lately, they are not.

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Among the Cowboys’ all-time receivers, Lamb currently sits in ninth place in career receiving yards (4,371) and could overtake Miles Austin with 111 yards this weekend in Carolina. With 12 more catches, he’ll pass Jay Novacek for sole possession of ninth place in total receptions.

‘He’s scratching the surface in these last few games,” Cowboys quarterback Dak Prescott said following last week’s record-setting afternoon. “He’s special.”

Special enough for his gloves to be invited to Canton.

And if Lamb keeps this up, his bust will be there someday, too.

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Cowboys’ CeeDee Lamb named NFC’s Offensive Player of the Week

From @ToddBrock24f7: Lamb caught 11 passes for 151 yards and added another score as a rusher. He’s the third Cowboy to win a weekly award this season.

When you do something that no player in the history of the National Football League has ever done, some extra recognition is appropriate.

After catching nearly everything that came his way in the Cowboys’ 49-17 rout of the Giants, wide receiver CeeDee Lamb has also caught a spiffy new award for his trophy case. Lamb was named the NFC’s Offensive Player of the Week.

Lamb’s 11-catch, 151-yard outing on Sunday made him the first player to ever string together three consecutive games of over 10 receptions and 150-plus receiving yards. His receiving stats for that span are indeed eye-popping: 34 catches for 500 yards and three touchdowns, and that’s just since Oct. 29.

On the season, Lamb has put himself in the conversation for elite status. Here are his current statistical rankings in several key categories among all pass-catchers leaguewide:

Tgt Rec Yds 1stDwn Rec/Gm Yds/Gm
CeeDee Lamb 13th 6th 3rd 5th 5th 4th

Lamb added to his impressive showing versus New York last week by also rushing for a touchdown, his first since his rookie season of 2020.

The former first-round draft pick out of Oklahoma is on pace for 129 receptions, which would be a career-best. He’s also tracking toward 1,841 yards, a number that would rank as the NFL’s fifth-highest single-season total ever.

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This is the first time Lamb has received the weekly award, and the first time a Cowboy has been so honored since Amari Cooper won it twice in a three-week span in 2018.

Linebacker Micah Parsons won Defensive Player of the Week for Week 2; kicker Brandon Aubrey took home the Special Teams Player of the Week prize for Week 9.

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Watch: CeeDee Lamb gets Cowboys on board with his legs

CeeDee Lamb followed up his acrobatic catch with a scoring run to open things up for Dallas. Watch both.

CeeDee Lamb has been balling as a receiver over the last several weeks. His back-to-back 150-plus yard games have skyrocketed him up the leaderboard in the NFL. Dallas has answered his call to get him more involved in the offense over the last three weeks and they continued to do so on Sunday.

And while his receiving prowess is certainly on display in the Week 10 game against the New York Giants, the Cowboys got on the board thanks to Lamb harping back to his eight-grade running back days.

Greg Olsen called the play a tornado reverse, thanks to the distraction made on the end around that went to the right side for the score.

Earlier in the game, Lamb made an incredible one-handed catch while being interfered with.

‘Give them a reason to focus on me’: Lamb’s hot start, career day lifts entire Cowboys passing game

From @ToddBrock24f7: Lamb knows opposing defenses are focused on him, so he wants to give them a reason to be. That, he says, allows everyone else to explode.

CeeDee Lamb had a career day on Sunday. Fitting, the Cowboys wide receiver says, since he’s been building his relationship with quarterback Dak Prescott from the very first day he became a pro.

“Year Four together,” Lamb reflected after the team’s 43-20 win over the Rams. “A lot of banked reps.”

The 24-year-old came away from the Week 8 victory with personal bests in receptions (12) and receiving yards (158), and he caught two touchdowns for the sixth time as a Cowboy.

The scary part? Most of those stats were compiled in just the first half; Lamb believes his own hot start helped the entire Dallas offense find its rhythm in the blowout win.

“Absolutely. I got started early, and it kind of opened up the offense for us,” he explained, “just giving us the ability to call any play with no restrictions. I feel like that’s when we’re at our best, playing fast and making plays.”

Lamb and Prescott have clearly been at their best of late. The first-round draft pick out of Oklahoma currently has a catch percentage of 82.1% on the season, the highest of any wide receiver in the league with over 30 targets.

While it’s been fun to watch, there’s no mystery about where it’s come from.

“You can clearly see the connection, and that obviously started last year,” head coach Mike McCarthy said following the win. “Just in the offseason, these guys have spent a tremendous amount of time together. The one touchdown throw was a new wrinkle, and you just don’t have that kind of patience as a quarterback unless you truly trust the receiver at the top of the stem there.”

“Work,” Prescott agreed in his postgame press conference. “A lot of work. A lot of time put into it, talking about depositing the work and then being able to withdraw it when you need to. You can go back into the offseason, from the time we started way back in April, maybe even before then in my backyard, to the time we spent in minicamp and OTAs to trips out to Atlanta, a lot of time invested. A lot of trust in that guy.”

That trust was tested after the team’s disappointing loss to San Francisco in Week 5, when Lamb was visibly upset about his apparent lack of use in the Dallas offense.

Prescott and others offered pep talks in the week of practice that followed. But Lamb has also seen more throws come his way- especially early in games- since. In Week 6 against the Chargers, he saw five targets in the first half alone, the same number he’d gotten across his entire 49ers outing.

This past Sunday, that number doubled to 10 targets before intermission.

“Just get in the game early,” Lamb explained. “Want to get the defense on their heels. Obviously, they’re going to be focusing on me, so give them a reason to focus on me. And then I want all my guys to explode.”

It worked versus the Rams, with 11 Cowboys pass-catchers getting targeted in the contest and Prescott topping 300 passing yards for the first time this season.

But Lamb was undoubtedly Prescott’s primary option; he received 14 targets on the day, Brandin Cooks and Jake Ferguson were tied well behind him for second, with four.

“He runs, he knows what I’m thinking, we’re always communicating,” Prescott said of Lamb. “And I think that’s why when it’s not going our way, it’s frustrating, because we put so much into it. But right now, we’re reaping the rewards of everything that we’ve put into this, and it’s only going to continue to grow.”

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The Cowboys’ fourth win by 20 or more points has raised eyebrows across the league about the potent Dallas offense, but Lamb took a matter-of-fact view when asked about it.

“We’re explosive and physical. And I say that with full ability and capability. I know what we can do week in and week out. We can definitely take the top off defenses,” he told reporters.

“That’s what we’re looking for week in and week out. That’s how we should play. And that’s just more of a stepping stone to what’s to come.”

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Lamb to slaughter: Cowboys find killer instinct by targeting top weapon

The Cowboys offense rises to a different level when they feed their star WR CeeDee Lamb. | From @ReidDHanson

Year 1 of the Mike McCarthy offense has had its fair share of bumps, earning criticism both externally and internally. The most public of internal criticisms came from CeeDee Lamb, amidst the Week 5 loss to San Francisco. The Dallas Cowboys’ star WR was frustrated by his role on the team and let his displeasure known rather publicly.

The Cowboys responded in Week 6, prior to their bye, feeding Lamb the ball to the tune of seven receptions for 117 yards in their 20-17 win over the Chargers. If Week 8 against the Rams is any indication, it’s a something that may be permanently ingrained in McCarthy’s mind. Lamb finished the 43-20 victory with 12 receptions for 158 yards and two touchdowns.

Behind the Lamb-led offense, the Cowboys took a 33-9 lead into the half. Even with Los Angeles’ ensuing third quarter touchdown, the game was well in hand and the Dak Prescott-to-Lamb connection was largely to credit.

Lamb averaged 0.89 EPA/play receiving on Sunday. His 12.5 total EPA earned was second only to Prescott. He even added a run that produced 0.79 EPA on its own.

It wasn’t a flawless effort but it was extremely efficient and opened opportunities up for others in the second half.

For the first time since a disastrous 2020 season in which Prescott was lost for the year, the Cowboys found themselves outside the top-10 in offensive rankings.

They went into their bye week with a renewed sense of confidence, though, following the win in L.A. Lamb proved to be their biggest playmaker on offense, and the key to unlocking McCarthy’s passing attack. But would their lessons learned in Los Angeles stay learned or was it destined to be forgotten?

The immediate results are certainly hope inspiring.

Over the past two games, Lamb has averaged 9.5 receptions, 137.5 yards and a touchdown. It’s a pace many would be thrilled to see continued and puts Lamb on level ground with the NFL’s top tier of pass catchers.

Great offenses find ways to get the ball to their best players. Motion, formations, and route combinations are all ways to free up players who have otherwise been locked down by the opposing defense. And make no mistake, opposing defenses will try to lock down Lamb.

Per Next Gen Stats, Lamb is one of just four WRs over the past two seasons with multiple receptions on five different routes. It speaks to his ability to run different routes and his ability to make plays. He has no obvious limitations.

Lamb’s growth in 2023 is proof the Cowboys offense is continuing to grow as well. While Lamb deserves credit for his performance, it’s the gameplan that’s ultimately responsible for giving him the opportunities.

Kudos all around.

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Cowboys’ Lamb lost for answers on offense’s identity, consistency

From @ToddBrock24f7: The Cowboys had no answers for the 49ers. But after a 42-10 loss, CeeDee Lamb repeatedly had the same reply to questions about the offense.

For the duration of Sunday night’s blowout in the Bay, the Cowboys had no answers whatsoever for the 49ers.

Shortly after the 42-10 trouncing, though, Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb repeatedly had the same bewildered reply.

What’s the identity of this offense?Lamb was asked at his locker.

“I don’t know,” came his dejected response.

Should you, five weeks into the season?

“I guess so. I don’t know.”

How do you guys find it?

“I don’t know.”

Lamb and the Cowboys offense was similarly flummoxed for the entire night in what was supposed to be a clash of evenly-matched NFC powers. Instead, the most eagerly-anticipated showdown of the young 2023 season turned into a one-sided affair right from the jump and stayed that way for three hours.

Week 5’s embarrassing defeat was far worse than the playoff losses suffered at the hands of the 49ers in consecutive years. For all who believed the Cowboys had made the necessary offseason changes to finally get that red-and-gold monkey off the team’s back, Sunday’s primetime humiliation left them grasping to make sense of what had just happened.

How did it get away from you guys tonight?” Lamb was asked.

“Wish I could tell you,” was all the visibly dejected receiver could offer. “Wish I could tell you.”

The cold, hard stats certainly say plenty about the offense’s ineffectiveness. They registered just eight first downs all night and didn’t get their first until their fifth possession. Their average drive started at their own 21, lasted fewer than four plays, and gained a pitiful 15 yards. They were held to under 200 yards of total offense. They never took a snap from any closer than 26 yards to the 49ers end zone. They held the ball for less than 23 minutes.

That’s a far cry from the kind of numbers Dallas put up in easy, commanding wins over the Giants, Jets, and Patriots. The team’s point average in those three games: 36.

But the revamped offense, now under the play-calling direction of head coach Mike McCarthy, scored just 10 against San Francisco in a game that coaches and players alike had openly called a “measuring stick.”

“We’ve got to be complete,” Lamb put it bluntly. “We can’t go out there one week and look like a superteam and then the following week, [expletive] the bed.”

Lamb, who is under contract through 2024 but has been the subject of recent extension talks in Dallas, led the team with just 49 receiving yards, hauling in four catches on five targets. Replays showed him to be open far more frequently than that. His body language- on the field, on the sideline, and in the locker room- made his frustration evident.

 

“They did a phenomenal job, playing two-high,” Lamb told reporters of San Francisco’s defense. “They schemed well. They got after the quarterback a little bit. Overall, we couldn’t get the offense going. We had plenty of three-and-outs.”

Four. Dallas had four three-and-outs, all in the first half while the score was still relatively close.

After the break, quarterback Dak Prescott threw interceptions on three straight possessions, trying to play catch-up, to end drives of three, two, and three plays.

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Now Lamb, Prescott, McCarthy, and the Dallas offense have no choice but to go back to the drawing board to try to find some new answers, starting with another West Coast trip this weekend to face the Chargers and former OC Kellen Moore.

Lamb knows it will take more than their next week of practice, more than their next win to get past this gut-punch failure in San Francisco.

“We’ve got 12 other games to compete in,” he observed.

But if the Cowboys offense doesn’t find some answers- soon- on how to be consistent performers, they’ll be at a loss for far more than words.

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