FRISCO, Texas — CeeDee Lamb said Thursday he practices ball security every week, four days after a fourth-quarter fumble in Indianapolis. The Dallas Cowboys receiver faces San Francisco 49ers linebacker Fred Warner on Sunday.
Lamb caught 10 passes for 195 yards and a touchdown on 16 targets in the 27-23 win over the Indianapolis Colts, including a 44-yard score with 21 seconds left in the first half. Early in the fourth quarter, he caught a 48-yard pass on third-and-12 and was ruled down at the Indianapolis 13. The Colts challenged, and replay reversed the call to a fumble that Indianapolis recovered at its 9.
San Francisco took the ball away five times in its last game, a win over the Las Vegas Raiders, and Warner and fellow linebacker Dre Greenlaw each recovered a fumble. Against that defense, avoiding turnovers is the priority for Lamb.
“Very crucial,” Lamb said. “I feel like we just got to be on top of our keys, man. I mean, a football game is going to break out. They’re going to make some plays. They’re going to make some tackles. They’re going to have a lot of energy. It’s all we though. We just got to match the energy. Don’t let them get too ahead. Don’t let them get overconfident. I mean, they coming in the game confident anyway. So let’s go out there and do what we do.”
Warner’s ability to force fumbles has Lamb’s attention going into Sunday.
“I mean, I think he just had two last week,” Lamb explained. “That’s all the awareness you need going into the game. And he do a great job of, I mean, obviously, we all know who 54 is. Great ball player, and I mean, he do a good job of attacking the ball, continue to attack, whether he hits it or not. It’s always there. Just protect the ball. You understand what’s coming with it, and move on.”
Dallas lost two fumbles at Indianapolis, including Lamb’s. Defenders around the league now punch at the ball with intent instead of only trying to make the tackle, Cowboys coach Brian Schottenheimer said Wednesday.
“I mean, they could try,” Lamb said. “I don’t think they have much success. The only reason that the ball did come out was from the ground. So keep punching at it if you want. I mean, I practice ball security every week.”
“Top of the week, you want ball security, very important,” Lamb continued. “You want to keep the ball in hand, and that’s how you get an edge.”
CeeDee Lamb’s 195-Yard Game In Indianapolis
The 195 yards were the second-highest total of Lamb’s career, the Cowboys’ official website reported. Wide receiver George Pickens missed the game with a hamstring injury.
Lamb was also flagged for a false start and two offensive pass interference penalties at Indianapolis, and the fumble and the flags stayed with him even after the win.
“Yeah, just because I know the type of player I am, I’m a perfectionist,” Lamb said. “So just the ones that I mean, I’ve, the plays that I’ve made, I always think that I should have made those. So those don’t really excite me. It’s the ones that I leave out there that kind of eat at me at night.”
“Calling it how I see it. I got to be better,” Lamb continued. “Obviously, holding myself up with the ball in hand is not the brightest idea, and now that I know that, I mean, not now that I know that. I always knew that, but the risk is higher. Just continuing again, week in and week out. The preparation would continue to just make me confident in myself, which I didn’t lose any. But I mean, the things that I prepped throughout the week leading up to the game will make you ultimately as confident as you should. The preparation is just as good as the success.”
With Pickens inactive, Lamb drew 16 targets at Indianapolis. Cowboys offensive coordinator Klayton Adams said Dallas also asks Lamb to handle run-game work that some star receivers are never put in position to do.
“CeeDee’s, his game is different than a lot of different receivers around the league just because he’s so diverse,” Adams said. “I mean, you can put him inside, you can put him outside. There are things in the run game that he can do. There’s some star receivers that you just never would put him in position to do some of those things.”
“So when he’s in a cut split, it’s realistic because he does do some of the dirty work, some because he’s a big, strong guy,” Adams added. “And I think that it’s just the diversity of his game. He’s not just a vertical guy. He’s not just a cross-field guy. He’s not just a run-and-stop guy. He can do a little bit of everything, and it makes him really hard to defend.”
Lamb has to be ready to produce from every one of those spots Adams described.
“Preparation, a lot of running, a lot of cardio, and always being ready for the moment,” Lamb said.
Whenever his number is called, Lamb said, his end goal is for his teammates to know he will deliver.
“I just want to be that safety deposit for my team,” Lamb said. “If we need it, I’ll pick it up, no matter how many on me.”
Lamb accounted for 195 of Dak Prescott’s 335 passing yards at Indianapolis. Prescott said Lamb has started taking ownership of plays when they talk after them.
“Yeah, I don’t know if I can speak and just get the words to say how valuable that guy is,” Prescott said. “And just what he means to this offense, what he means to me, and just how great he’s been, and getting open and understanding what we’re trying to accomplish, and not only that, just the communication throughout the game.”
“I think that’s where he’s taken such a huge step and such a step that that’s big for me is just being able to go talk to him after plays,” Prescott continued. “Not that we haven’t been able to, but getting such a clear answer back of what he’s seeing or what he wants, what he wants to get done, or maybe even taking some ownership on something that’s already happened. And so he’s in a great spot. He’s playing great ball. You can tell. Just the way that he’s practicing, the way that he approaches the building. Yeah, we just got to keep finding a way to feed him.”
Klayton Adams Praises Ryan Flournoy
Trailing 23-20 with 1:37 left at Indianapolis, Prescott opened the final drive with a 46-yard completion to Ryan Flournoy down the right side. Javonte Williams scored the winning touchdown on a 1-yard run with 1:08 remaining.
Flournoy started with Pickens out and entered the game with 30 catches for 342 yards this season.
“I have, it’s a great question for me because I have a tremendous amount of love for Ryan and what he means to this team and what he means to the offense,” Adams explained. “He’s a guy who what he does doesn’t always show up in the stats. And I was really happy for him that what he did did show up in the stats and everybody got to see how important he is to us. But I mean, he just, he means a ton to us. On and off the field because of his mentality.”
“The guy kind of operates, I don’t know where he got drafted, but he kind of operates within the building like he’s just an undrafted free agent who’s trying to earn it every day and played smaller level of football, which some of that’s probably going away, right?” Adams continued. “Not very often are there going to be guys that are coming out of the smaller schools because of the way that college football operates.”
“So I just, I think that who we want to be as an offense, a lot of that is you look at Flo,” Adams noted. “And I think that that type of mentality is where we would like to go as an entire group.”
Pickens was limited in practice for a second straight day Thursday with the hamstring injury that kept him out at Indianapolis.
“I mean, we prepare, we put in the plays for him to play, and we’ve got guys that will be able to be ready to step up,” Prescott said. “I mean, Flo’s showing what he’s done, and the rest of the guys are itching to get an opportunity if that’s what it comes to.”
Dallas releases its final injury report of the week Friday. The Cowboys (4-5) host the 49ers (7-1) on Sunday at AT&T Stadium, with kickoff set for 3:25 p.m. CT on Fox.
Join the conversation