CeeDee Lamb — Week 2: Four Deep Catches, Two Touchdowns

2026 NFL Season · Half-PPR Scoring · Monday, Sep 21

Lamb caught 8 of 9 targets for 153 yards and two touchdowns, with seven first downs; all four of Dak Prescott's completions on throws labeled deep went to him, for 23, 38, 35 and the 24-yard touchdown with 3:13 left. His targets were worth plus 11.4 expected points, the most of any receiver in the game, in a 37–20 win over the Commanders.

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30 to 20, Cowboys, six 16 left in the fourth quarter, second and 12 at the Dallas 27, two snaps after a holding penalty had taken a 25-yard run off the board. Dak Prescott threw deep right to CeeDee Lamb, 35 yards, pushed out at the Washington 38. +3.1 expected points added — expected points added is what a play was worth given down, distance and field position. Five snaps later, second and six at the 24 with three 13 left, Prescott went deep right to him again for the touchdown: +3.2, the most valuable Dallas play of the game by that measure, with the 35-yarder second. Washington had cut a 17-point lead to 10, and that drive put it back. Win probability, the chance of winning the game after the play against before it, moved 2.2 points and 1.0 on the two plays; Dallas was already well ahead.

The line: nine targets, eight catches, a hundred 53 yards, two touchdowns, seven first downs, +11.4 expected points on the targets, the most of any receiver on either team; Jake Ferguson's +6.5 was next. The first quarter alone was five catches for 89 yards and a score: 15 23 on back-to-back snaps of the opening drive; the three-yard touchdown on second and goal, short middle, with 10 oh four left; 38 deep right on the first snap of the second possession; and 10 on third and five to the Washington 11. Then five on second and 19 in the second quarter, the one incompletion on third and four with 13 35 left in the game, before a 60-yard field goal, and the 35 and the 24. Six targets before halftime, three after. 28 of the hundred 53 yards came after the catch.

Nine targets led Dallas: George Pickens eight, Ryan Flournoy six, Javonte Williams and Ferguson four each, 31 throws in all. Lamb had a hundred 53 of Prescott's 279 passing yards. The play-by-play labels five of Prescott's throws deep; four were complete, all four to Lamb — 23, 38, 35, 24 — and the fifth fell incomplete for Pickens. In Week 1 Prescott threw eight such passes and completed none.

Back in June the preview's call on Lamb was underpriced — the sixth receiver off the board at pick 11, with nine targets a game as the signal and last season's three touchdowns on a hundred 17 targets as the noise that would correct. It named the red-zone looks with Pickens healthy as the thing to watch. Week 1 was eight targets, 44 yards and a one-yard touchdown. Sunday was nine targets and two more scores, one from the three and one from the 24. He scored three touchdowns in 13 games last season; he has three in two. 17 targets in two games is eight and a half a week, just under the preview's nine, and the split with Pickens has been eight to six and nine to eight. Two games do not make a season's touchdown rate. They are what the correction the preview described looks like when it starts. Dallas plays the Ravens on Sunday the 20-seventh at Maracana Stadium, a neutral site where the Cowboys are the listed home team.

_Data via nflverse._

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