What You Need to Know:

• Lamb got off to a strong start before Dak Prescott went down. After Week 5 (Prescott’s injury game), the rookie was on pace for:
  • 93 catches
  • 1,386 yards
  • 6 TDs
• His 16-game pace over the remaining 11 contests:
  • 65 catches
  • 730 yards
  • 4 TDs
• Lamb’s catch rate and yards per reception dipped after Prescott’s injury. He went from a 73% catch rate with Prescott to 63.5% with all other QBs. The rookie’s yards per reception fell from 15.3 with Prescott to 11.2 without him.
• That came despite his average depth of target actually seeing a slight boost. Lamb had a 10.00 ADOT through Prescott’s 4 full games, according to Pro Football Focus. It was 10.13 from Week 6 on. (The QB went down in the 2nd quarter of Week 5.)
• Lamb ranked 56th in PFF receiving grade among 200 targeted wideouts, trailing Amari Cooper but ahead of Michael Gallup.
• Lamb ranked 2nd on the team in targets as a rookie, leading Gallup by just 6 targets. The rookie led the trio in targets 3 times in 16 games, tying for the lead 2 other times. Cooper led 6 times and Gallup 4.
• The medians for weekly targets for the trio went: Cooper 7.5, Lamb 7, Gallup 6.
• Dallas WRs collectively gathered their largest share of targets since 2017, ranking 8th in the league last season. That could leave room for a move in either direction: a larger slice going back to TE in 2021 with Blake Jarwin back -- or the Cowboys’ dynamic (and still young) WR trio commanding even more.
• The rookie ran 93.2% of his snaps from the slot, according to PFF. He still beat Cooper in ADOT for the season, 10.32 to 9.49.
• Lamb certainly showed the ability to work downfield in college, averaging 19.0 yards per reception for his 3-year Oklahoma career.

Draft Sharks Bottom Line:

There is plenty to get excited about with this former 1st-round pick, and it wouldn’t shock us if Lamb finishes 2021 as Dallas’ top-scoring fantasy WR. The only problem with his fantasy outlook is that drafters are extremely excited. As of this writing, Lamb sits 13th among wideouts in FFPC best-ball ADP -- going at the Round 3-4 turn.

Lamb is good enough to break into the position’s top 12 in his 2nd season, but sharing the field with Amari Cooper and Michael Gallup will make that more of a challenge than it might be in plenty of other places. We don’t want to be totally out on Lamb, but that WR13 price doesn’t come close to matching our WR22 PPR projection on him.