FRISCO, Texas – After a frustrating performance against the Eagles with several drops in Week 12, CeeDee Lamb responded in a big way for the Cowboys against Kansas City with seven receptions for 112 yards and a touchdown.
It was a performance that certainly was relieving, as Lamb was able to clear any mental block he may have had and take a leap in the right direction heading into a pivotal stretch of the season.
"Overall getting back on the right track, I feel like it's a momentum thing, and as a receiver I feel like everything is confidence based," Lamb said. "I wouldn't say I lost any confidence, it was moreso just getting in my own head."
"I feel like you can't really do that in this position. Especially with as many games as we have coming up, or a short week or just different situations, you can't really let what happened last game, good or bad, reflect on what's going to happen this week."
If there ever is a mental hurdle that Lamb needs to clear, how does he deal with approaching it and finding the way to jump over it?
"Just be able to cope," Lamb said. "You've got to be able to understand the problem, being open to solutions, and at the end of the day acting on your thoughts. I feel like adversity shows itself in different ways, it's all on how you overcome it."
Their next obstacle is the Detroit Lions, who beat Dallas 47-9 last season. That came a year after Lamb posted his career-high 227 receiving yards and a touchdown on 13 catches. He's familiar with the challenges that Dan Campbell's unit presents, especially with their physical identity.
"I find fun in that," Lamb said of playing a physical team like Detroit. "That's what football is, and then sometimes the ref will let you play, and then sometimes they won't. So we'll see how that goes, but as far as the physicality of the game, I know what's going to happen."
"I know that these DBs, they like to put hands on. They run a lot of man and they're going to be in your face. You know what's going on in this fight, it's just on how you're going to prepare for it. It's almost like a boxing match."
When on the road this year, the Cowboys have won just two of their six games, beating the Jets and Raiders but losing by an average of 11 points in their other four away tests. Does Lamb feel like Dallas is missing a signature road win this year?
"Missing? I wouldn't say that, but I do say we do need it," Lamb said. "It's not really something that I feel like because we haven't got it in the past that we need it now. I just feel like because of the situation we're in, we need it now."
Similarly to the Cowboys' situation, the Lions are in need of a victory to stay in the playoff hunt, holding a 7-5 record in a packed NFC. Dallas would move ahead of them in the playoff hunt with a victory on Thursday. Lamb isn't focused as much on Detroit's predicament as much as he is his own team's, and feels this is basically a playoff game in and of itself given the stakes.
"We know what we've got to do for us," Lamb said. "We're not really speaking on what they've got. They understand their situation, we know what we've got. I do feel like it's going to be a big game, and it's going to be fun, and it's going to everything that we think it's going to be."
"It's going to be physical, it's going to be long, it's going to be hard. It's a playoff game essentially, you've got the atmosphere, we're playing away, I don't think it gets any better especially with everyone in the whole world understanding the situation as far as us all wanting to be in the playoffs. It's going to be fun. It's going to be a good one."
And with three straight wins under their belts in the last three weeks, Lamb and the Cowboys believe they can continue to win in the final five weeks of the season.
"We take a lot of confidence into this game," Lamb said. "We've won, we've proved it to ourselves we could do it three times in a row, why not make it four?"
