Cowboys’ Lamb admits being frustrated in SF loss

Todd Archer, ESPN Staff WriterOct 13, 2023, 05:43 PM ET
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FRISCO, Texas — Dallas Cowboys wide receiver CeeDee Lamb knows he has to do a better job dealing with frustration during games.

In last weekend’s 42-10 loss to the San Francisco 49ers, Lamb, who caught four passes for 49 yards, was visibly upset, standing off to the side and at times disengaged from his teammates, including Dak Prescott.

“I’ve had to reflect, self-reflect, and I didn’t go the best route to get my end result,” Lamb said. “At the end of the day, I have a job to do and I want to contribute to this team. I do everything in my power week in and week out to do that. Going forward, there is a better way to go about it, make a lighter situation.”

Lamb said he had a conversation with Prescott on Monday.

“He came up to me, he’s like, ‘If you have a problem with anything, just come up to me and we’ll talk about it. I don’t care how it necessarily looks in the media, right,'” Lamb said. “But the media is going to do what the media does anyway. If I stand by myself, it’s a problem. If I go talk to him and I flare my hands a little bit, it’s a problem. Right? At the end of the day, it’s just getting down to the nitty gritty, getting everything understood and both parts being on the same page. Me and Dak, we did that, first day back, so we could have all week, fresh slate to get after it.”

Prescott wants open communication, but he understood the frustration that was borne out of an offense that had nine of 11 drives last three plays or less when Prescott was in the game and had just eight first downs.

“We can be upset about it, [but] we’ve got to get an answer for it and the best way for an answer for it is communication,” Prescott said. “That’s my point of him, ‘Hey, come up to me, come find me. I’ll come find you,’ and in a sense we did at times. … Let’s get passionate and figure out an answer on the sideline. The last thing we’re going to do is not speak about it and allow it to linger as well.”

Lamb has 27 catches for 358 yards and a touchdown through five games. Through five games last year, in which Prescott started just once because of a broken thumb, he had 28 catches for 341 yards and two touchdowns. He has been targeted 35 times this year, compared to 50 targets last year when Cooper Rush started four games.

“Me as a competitor, man, I like to win,” Lamb said. “First and foremost. I don’t care how that looks. I am an ultimate competitor. I do anything in my power for me team, from guys, my boys, they know this. This is nothing ever personal. This is all for the better. I want to win, and I want to contribute. Point blank period.”

Coach Mike McCarthy had a discussion with Lamb on Monday, as well. He wants to get Lamb more opportunities, but as the playcaller, he wants to maintain balance in the offense.

“I’ll just say that if he’s not pissed off that he’s not getting the ball then I’m pissed off that he’s not pissed off,” McCarthy said. “He’s an impact player, he should feel that way. It’s like anything in life, how you handle things and move forward, how you affect others, there’s so many things that can come out of that. I’m fully aware of it, and it was frustrating. It was frustrating not doing your part on offense. I felt that. I felt frustration as a play-caller.”