“But trusting in my process and trusting in my team, my rehab team, and the training staff here, it’s just getting back right and making sure that it’s right for me to go out there and be myself again.”
Lamb said Thursday that he could’ve played last week against the Carolina Panthers, but he and the training staff made the decision that it was in his best interests to wait one more week to ensure his ankle was feeling the best it possibly could.
“I feel like that’s why we took an extra week off,” Lamb said. “Just to make sure I had that comfort, just to make sure that I had that same explosiveness, just to make sure that I had that same stability.”
If there is a re-adjustment period for Lamb in terms of getting back into full playing form again, he doesn’t expect it to take much time.
“I don’t think it’ll be long at all,” Lamb said. “I feel like I’m out there moving around, running around, being me, happy as can be. Just believing in my ankle, I feel like it’s back to where I needed it to be.”
The high ankle sprain occurred in Week 3 against the Chicago Bears, where Lamb lined up in the backfield as a running back and went down awkwardly on a tackle. While some criticized head coach Brian Schottenhiemer for using Lamb as a running back, the Cowboys’ play caller has repeatedly said he didn’t regret the call, and Lamb doesn’t mind being lined up in the backfield either.
“I’m with whatever,” Lamb said. “I don’t know why people are acting like that’s my first time being in the backfield. That was just one of those freakish plays, I gave the guy a stiff arm, he managed to hit his knee on my ankle. It’s football. I don’t think he deserved any backlash, because if I would’ve scored, I don’t know if he would have gotten backlash.”
In Lamb’s absence, his counterpart George Pickens has been everything that the Cowboys could’ve hoped for since trading a third-round pick for him in May, and then some. Lamb considers himself to be one of Pickens’ biggest fans, and said that he’ll also join Dak Prescott in telling Cowboys owner/GM Jerry Jones to keep Pickens in Dallas long-term.
“I gave y’all a warning… I was like, ‘You’ve got two one’s.’ I don’t think everybody really believed me, until one of us went down and we saw,” Lamb said. “It’s kind of like a prove me right, and prove everybody else wrong about who he is, his humility, and the presence he brings to this team and to this game. He’s a dominant receiver; we all know that.”
In the last few weeks, the Cowboys have also moved Pickens around in different alignments as a receiver, and not just on the outside where he spent a majority of his time in Pittsburgh. That opens up another layer for the offense, and Lamb credited new wide receivers coach Junior Adams for playing a part in making that possible.
“That just gives everybody the opportunity to be interchangeable,” Lamb said. “Just find a matchup, and being able to learn the concepts, that’s just a testament to the work that we put in. Shout out [Adams] for making sure that we’re all on the same page… and making sure that we’re able to go out there, play fast, and be the receivers that we are.”
On Sunday, Lamb and the Cowboys will face some familiar faces on the other side of the ball in former Cowboys defensive coordinator and now Commanders head coach Dan Quinn, in addition to former Cowboys pass game coordinator/secondaries coach and now Commanders defensive coordinator Joe Whitt Jr.
Lamb is expecting a lot of the same things that he went up against in practice early during his tenure with the Cowboys while Quinn and Whitt were calling the shots on the other side of the field.
“They’re very aggressive,” Lamb said. “[Whitt] trusts his back end and rightfully so, those guys are young, they’re fast, they’re talented. And they can play man, it shows all over the tape, and they have a good rush. Very familiar with a lot of guys on that defensive end over there.”
In each of the last three seasons, Lamb has caught over 100 passes and surpassed 1,000 receiving yards. With 16 catches and 222 yards so far this year, he’ll have some catching up to do if he wants to extend the streak to four years, but that isn’t what motivating him.
“That’s not why I’m hungry. Why I’m hungry is me missing time,” Lamb said. “Doing what I love and playing with the guys that I love, breaking the huddle and being able to just go out there and be me, myself. Be an explosive player and making sure that I’m able to help contribute to wins and we keep this thing rolling.”
