After posting 74 catches for 935 yards and five touchdowns as a rookie, in a season that saw his starting quarterback go down after just a few games, and on a team that also boasted top-tier wideouts Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup, it's no wonder that the expectations for second-year stud CeeDee Lamb are sky-high. It's not that this wasn't the case at this time last year, seeing as he wowed throughout college and was a first-round talent with obvious upside.
Year two figures to be a whole different animal though. For one, fans are banking on the successful return of Dak Prescott to run the offense. A significant leap in production can often occur between year one and year two in a budding star's career, too, with recent cases serving as good examples of this. For instance, we saw Terry McLaurin improve his 2019 campaign by 29 catches and 200 yards in 2020. D.K. Metcalf went from impressive rookie to all-league talent with his monstrous 2020 season. David Montgomery was a much more effective runner in the Chicago attack last year despite similarly shoddy quarterback play in both seasons.
And then there's the preseason hype, the hype that occurs when you're one of those players who always seems to make a highlight-reel play when you take the field in any capacity. Though the one that has circulated on social media most recently wasn't one of his flashy one-handed grabs or a full-extension diving catch, it sure turned heads and stirred the Cowboys fan base into an excited frenzy.
And then there are those aforementioned jaw-dropping displays of his talent and coordination.
There's so much buzz around Lamb, in fact, that Pro Football Focus fantasy analyst Jarad Evans said that Lamb's "ADP (average draft position) is spiking at the highest rate in fantasy football" at this point. Fantasy Football Calculator's ADP ratings in mock drafts seem to show that this could be the case — Lamb has gone from an ADP of pick No. 44 to pick No. 36 in just over a month, passing over fellow Cowboys WR Amari Cooper (No. 43 ADP).
Here are some other reasons that this may be the case, some of which I truly believe and some of which I'm doing in a (somewhat) facetious manner — it shouldn't be hard to separate the two:
- Lamb has some cool metrics on his side, including the fact that he was the most-targeted player in two-minute situations throughout 2020. Should the Cowboys bring back a high-powered offense and a less-than-stellar defense, there could be a fair share of those scenarios in which Lamb can feast and pick up huge chunks of yardage in short periods of time.
- Lamb is featured on "Hard Knocks" along with the rest of the Cowboys, and the national exposure to his incredible talent is sure to keep interest levels high.
- Fantasy owners probably realize just how versatile the names "CeeDee" and "Lamb" can be when deciding on a clever/funny fantasy team name. "Lamb of Goff" — although I'm not sure who would want Jared Goff anywhere on their rosters this season — is a pretty good one off the top of my head.
My two cents? I'd slot him in as a high-end WR2, behind the obvious picks and low-end WR1 names like Keenan Allen and Allen Robinson. However, I could definitely see him going ahead of guys like Terry McLaurin due to what should be a sizable target share (even in a crowded WR corps) in a high-powered attack. His ceiling is certainly high, but his floor is lower than some of the names that will get picked afterward. It's about your risk tolerance, and if you're looking for a breakout name, Lamb is a pretty good bet.
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