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At just 5-8 and on the brink of official elimination from playoff contention, there wouldn’t seem to be much left for the Cowboys to play for. But there is one star player who will have a noteworthy accomplishment well within his grasp when the team lines up to face Carolina in Week 15.
CeeDee Lamb needs just 27 receiving yards to post his fourth straight 1,000-yard season.
While some will argue that the 1,000-yard milestone doesn’t mean what it used to since the inception of the 17-game schedule (28 pass-catchers did it in 2023), it’s still a benchmark achievement.
And how rare is doing it four times in a row? Assuming Lamb hits 1K, he’ll become just the second Cowboy in franchise history to surpass 1,000 receiving yards in four consecutive campaigns.
Only Michael Irvin has pulled off that particular feat, topping the millennium mark five times in a row, every season from 1991 to 1995.
In fact, as hard as it may be to believe, Irvin and Jason Witten are the only Cowboys players with four or more 1,000-receiving-yard seasons at all in their careers. Dez Bryant didn’t do it. Drew Pearson didn’t do it. Not Tony Hill, Bob Hayes, or Frank Clarke.
After 64 years of Cowboys football, Lamb will be just the third member of that exclusive club.
He does still need to gain those 27 yards, but in the 79 regular-season games Lamb has played in since joining the team, he’s failed to hit that number just six times.
The three-time Pro Bowler suffered a shoulder injury in Week 9 but has nevertheless played through it and even leads the league in targets, so mathematically speaking (and knock on wood; he’s been limited in practice this week) it’s just a matter of how soon it happens on Sunday.
“Trying to play as hard as I can, I’m obviously putting myself out there for the benefit of the team,” Lamb said this week. “And of course, myself, I love to compete, but it’s bigger than me.”
Officials certainly won’t stop the game on Sunday to recognize Lamb’s 1,000-yard season. The moment may not even warrant a mention from the broadcast booth. Yes, Lamb’s 27th receiving yard this weekend will put him in elite company within the Cowboys record books, but he’d be the first to say that adding to the left-hand column of the team’s 2024 win-loss record is the more important contribution anyway.
“Be able to win the game, regardless, at the end of the day, you’ve still got to win the game,” he explained, “That’s the motivation.”