OXNARD, Calif. – Sunday's training camp practice may have been the most energetic yet for the Dallas Cowboys in their 2026 trip to Oxnard, with both the offense and defense making plays and talking trash to the other side.

Cowboys Pro Bowl wide receiver CeeDee Lamb feeds off of that enthusiasm.

"It's fire," Lamb said. "I embrace it, I love it. It's good to see your defense come out with that type of energy, that fire, that type of aggression early on. For us as an offense, it leaves us no choice to either bog down or fight back and get on top. And I know one thing about us, we won't bog down for nobody. Even if they're on our team, we're going to compete."

After Dallas' defense began the team portion of practice with the upperhand, the offense began to grab some momentum when Dak Prescott found Lamb deep down the right sideline for a big gain.

To end practice, Prescott once again connected with Lamb on a deep play where Lamb beat DaRon Bland down the same sideline and scored a touchdown in a two-minute situation.

"That'll never get old, ever," Lamb said of catching passes deep downfield from Prescott. "I'm excited that we're able to do that more times than not and able to connect early on in camp. I feel like that was a lot of things we were missing in our time together, and I feel like we're hitting on all cylinders now."

The 2026 season will be Lamb's seventh in the NFL. His personal goals for the year are fairly simple.

"I want to win," Lamb said. "I want to win, I want to win, I want to stay healthy, and I want to dominate the year. Whatever that looks like, whatever the numbers look like, that's cool. But as for me, I want to dominate, that's what I want to do. That's my contract to myself."

That doesn't mean there isn't room for improvement, though. For Lamb, it begins with continuing to build chemistry with Dak Prescott and figuring out what works, and what doesn't.

"I love getting better," Lamb said. "That's one thing about me, that's why you'll see here, I'm not having my most amazing camp ever, but I've gotten the best that I've ever gotten out of all my camps the most this year, out of this camp… I'm not afraid to fail. That's one thing about me. I'm going to go run this route, and I'm going to see if I like it, I like it. If I don't, I don't. And then we move on."

"For Dak, I want to run a route that's helpful to him, clear to him. If he knows what I'm running, I'm not worried about nothing else. As long as I'm in my spot when I need to be, I get the ball in my hands, I'll handle the rest."

That focus on improvement translates beyond his connection with Prescott and to elements of Lamb's personal game, namely releases, tweaks to his routes as he mentioned, etc. Lamb said he's willing to try new things, but if they don't work quickly, he's got no issue moving on.

"You're going to have your camps where you're just dominating and everything's working," Lamb said. "Okay, so when you get in a season, and some of those works aren't working, do you have a bag deep enough? I feel like in camp around these times, you're going to fill your toolkit, fill your bag, fill your bag with different moves, different sources, different weapons. And when the season comes around, you can never run out because you've already prepared."

One of the players that Lamb has gotten plenty of work against when assembling his tool bag this offseason is Caleb Downs, the Cowboys' 11^th overall pick in the 2026 NFL draft. Downs has gotten some work at nickel corner, which has set up some matchups with Lamb when he's aligned in the slot.

"He's real strong. Real competitive guy, real smart. His ability to adapt, I can get him on one thing one time, and obviously if you flip the play, I'm just going to be honest again, that's where the tools come in at. That's where you use different releases, different bags, different approaches to get to the same spot. As for him, he makes me work and vice versa. We get good work out there."

As much as Lamb appreciates the good work he gets competing against Downs, he's especially looking forward to Tuesday’s joint practice against the Los Angeles Rams, who have new faces in the secondary like Trent McDuffie and Jaylen Watson.

"Just being able to compete," Lamb said of what he's excited about in the joint practice. "Being able to compete against somebody else. Tired of seeing my own guys who know our plays, they've seen it for months now. To this point, I feel like let's see how we're going to operate when somebody else is across the line of scrimmage. We don't know each other, we're not good with nobody's technique, are we still ready? Are we still those guys? For me, I ask myself those questions and there's only one way for me to get the answers."

The Cowboys will have a recovery day on Monday before making the short trip to Woodland Hills on Tuesday for their joint practice against Sean McVay and the Rams.