Lamb was overshadowed by Pickens last season, but No. 88 still had a productive season and is still seen among the NFL's elite.
Dallas Cowboys receiver CeeDee Lamb is thankful to be healthy after injuries played a role in each of his last two seasons.
Yes, Lamb still posted 1,000+ yards (has done so in five consecutive seasons), but he wasn't the same threat as we have come to know.
A shoulder injury in 2024 and an ankle injury picked up early in 2025 meant CeeDee wasn't his usual dynamic self. Granted, he still had six 100-yard games en route to 1,070 yards and 3 TDs, both of which were his lowest returns since his rookie campaign,
But CeeDee also missed the most games in a season, playing just 14, and if we take his average yards per game (76.9) and project that out over the entire year, he would have finished with 1,300 yards.
So hardly any cause for concern.
And it appears that despite Lamb's "down" year, if you want to call it that, which saw him post eight drops, many around the league still view him as one of the best in football, and rightly so.
For Sports Illustrated's Mike Kadlick, when ranking the top 10 receivers in football, Lamb's partner, Pickens is seventh, while CeeDee comes in at No. 5.
"Paired with the aforementioned Pickens, Lamb makes up one half of what is arguably the NFL’s top wide receiver duo," Kadlick wrote. "The former Oklahoma Sooner was given the Cowboys’ signature No. 88 after he was drafted in the first round in 2020, and has backed it up with 7,416 receiving yards and 41 touchdowns on 571 career receptions.
"Lamb earned first-team All-Pro honors in 2023 after leading the league in catches (135) and tallying 1,749 yards and 12 touchdowns, and continues to be Dallas’s scariest weapon on offense, even after being out-produced by Pickens last season while missing three games due to injury."
It is perhaps the biggest feather in CeeDee's cap that, even after Pickens' meteoric rise in 2025, he is still seen as the apex predator of the Cowboys' offense.
After all, he is Dak Prescott's go-to target when in doubt.
Lamb has dealt with injuries the past two seasons, and for some, is developing that nasty "injury-prone" narrative, but now he will enter training camp fully healthy, and Cowboys fans will hope he stays that way when the regular season begins.
CeeDee excels at everything on the field, and having been "down" for the past two seasons, there is every reason to think that No. 88 might just have a bounce-back season for the ages.
