ARLINGTON, Texas – We're still about two weeks away from Thanksgiving, which is usually the time of year when the NFL starts coming into focus a little better. That's about the time we have a firm grasp of what teams are truly contenders and which teams are on the outside looking in.
It was Bill Parcells who said it about 20 years ago, that nothing really counts until Thanksgiving. And from a holiday standpoint, it's also about the time when we start to really shift into the Christmas spirit. Sure, there are some people who already have their decorations and Christmas tree up by now, but usually it's a post-Thanksgiving ritual.
But on Sunday, in a game the Cowboys completely dominated the Giants by a score of 49-17, Dak Prescott looked like Santa Claus out there on the field, ripping up the Giants left and right.
Anything Dak wanted to do, it seemed like he was able to – aside from one interception early in the game that didn't end up costing the Cowboys, thanks to a defensive stand.
But after that, he was passing out completions like they were presents at a holiday party filled with anxious kids, regardless if they'd been good or bad this year.
Oh, the fans and media have been chirping about Brandin Cooks not getting the ball? Well, here you go. Let's pass it to him on the first play of the game and let's keep it up all day long, giving him nine catches for 173 yards, tied for the second most in his career.
Oh yeah, Michael Gallup hasn't made a lot of catches this year? Well, let's throw a couple of deep balls to him – one of them for a 41-yard touchdown, his first of the year.
Let's get the ball to Jake Ferguson, who now has three touchdowns in three straight games. Even Jalen Brooks, who hadn't caught a pass all year, ended up with four catches for 39 yards.
And then, there's CeeDee Lamb, who is absolutely on another level right now, evident by the NFL record he just established. Three straight games of more than 150 yards and 10-plus catches, becoming the first player in league history to do so.
Get this, in his fourth year in the league, he's already set the Cowboys' all-time record for 10-catch, 150-yard games with four, passing the great Michael Irvin. That prompted him to be rather bold in his post-game press conference, making the statement that he's the "top receiver in this game. There's no question about it. If there is, I'll see you again next week."
Wow, that's quite a statement, but then again, is he wrong? There's no player who has ever been this hot in a three-game stretch.
But to me, I look at the last four games as the real benchmark. Remember, it was four games ago when CeeDee and Dak had a little chat on the sidelines in San Francisco, where it was clear that Lamb wasn't too thrilled with his lack of targets.
They had a discussion on the field, but it appears they had a more productive meeting after the game, where they cleared the air.
In the first five games of the season, Lamb was targeted 35 times. Since the 49ers game, he's had 51 targets in four games and he's caught 41 of them. And he has 617 yards in less than a month.
That's just insane numbers, but I'll take it back to Dak. He's got a receiver playing on a different universe and he still figured out a way to spread this thing around to let Cooks have his best game of the season, Gallup to have his best game since Week 3, the best game for Brooks and another solid effort for Ferguson, who is starting to have some security-blanket tendencies.
You can't really fault Dak for getting too cute at times with the ball because everything was seemingly working for him. He was throwing the ball away at times, and CeeDee was there to catch it.
Even at the end of the game, when Cooper Rush was out there, the Cowboys tried to get CeeDee the NFL record with two quick throws for 10 yards. And even that was relatively easy too.
But Cooper got the message from Dak, who just let him wear the Santa hat towards the end of the game. Clearly, it was Prescott's day to deliver and he did at the highest level.
For now, we all should expect fewer Christmas-like games as we actually get closer to Christmas on the calendar.
But for Dak's sake, at least he's getting into the spirit now.
