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FRISCO, Texas — CeeDee Lamb said Thursday that the Dallas Cowboys have to play together as a team over the second half of the season, starting Sunday against the 7-1 San Francisco 49ers.
Dallas is 4-5 after nine games. The Cowboys lost 34-31 to the Baltimore Ravens on a field goal as time expired in Rio de Janeiro, and they let a 17-3 lead get away in a 33-30 overtime loss to the Arizona Cardinals on Nov. 1.
Lamb took personal lessons from those close losses, most of them on the mental side of the game.
“Suck. We learned a lot from it,” Lamb said. “A lot of personal things that I feel like I could have been better at on a mental aspect of the game. There’s a lot of things that I feel like I could look at and nitpick, but overall, we just gotta play together. Let’s play like a team and see what that looks like.”
Lamb felt he was trying to do too much against the Colts before his fourth-quarter fumble, and his second-half approach is built around avoiding that.
“Just give exerted effort,” Lamb explained. “You can’t really deny that. You can’t gauge that. And at that point, you let the plays make itself. You don’t really want to do too much. Kind of what I felt like I was doing versus Colts, and then boom, the ball comes out miraculously. So just making routine plays. Do what we got to do.”
CeeDee Lamb On Turning Around Dallas’ Home Results
Dallas is 1-2 at AT&T Stadium this season, and Sunday’s game opens a three-game homestand.
“I think the first thing we got to do is catch a dub,” Lamb said. “I hate to be a smart ass.”
Beyond the win itself, Lamb said Dallas has to be more physical, smarter, and better at communicating against San Francisco.
“We understand that we got a good team coming in, but I feel like we’re a good team too, so it should be a good matchup,” Lamb said.
Lamb has treated every game as a must-win, and the job now is getting the rest of the roster locked in with him.
“I mean, as a competitor, I feel like you should always have that mentality. It’s a must win,” Lamb said. “It’s a must win game, and I mean, me personally going into every game, I feel like it’s a must win. But just to get everybody on board, everybody locking in. Prepare the right way and go out there and do it.”
CeeDee Lamb On His Veteran Role And The 49ers
At this point of the season, Lamb feels more responsibility as a veteran for making sure the players around him are accountable.
“Yeah, most definitely,” Lamb said. “This is where, I mean, obviously in practice, the physicality part of it kind of go down a little bit just to make sure that we make it to the game. But the mental part of the game enhances much more so. Just kind of getting everybody that’s going to be out there on the same page, understanding their assignments, understanding what they got to do, where they got to be, and we got to go out there and make it seamless.”
San Francisco has won the last four meetings between the teams, including a 30-24 win on Oct. 27, 2024.
“Nah, not necessarily. You can’t really make it a personal situation as far as the rivalry goes,” Lamb said. “The rivalry gonna be the rivalry regardless. 49ers Cowboys. And yeah, they’ve had much success on us in recent years, but get another opportunity to change that next on Sunday.”
Nine games into the season, Dak Prescott would not sum up the year so far.
“We’ve got to go get a win this week. I’m not,” Prescott said. “Everything’s in front of us, and at the end of the day, it’s all you can ask for is to control your destiny. And I think we still have the ability and an opportunity to do that. And I know how big this week would be, and so that’s my focus.”
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.
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