ARLINGTON, TX - DECEMBER 22: CeeDee Lamb #88 of the Dallas Cowboys warms up prior to an NFL football game against the Tampa Bay Buccaneers at AT&T Stadium on December 22, 2024 in Arlington, Texas. (Photo by Cooper Neill/Getty Images)
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CeeDee Lamb has been a good NFL receiver right out of the gate, but he first became a fantasy football star in 2022.
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As a rookie, Lamb ended up with 13.2 PPG (PPR), on 935 yards, 74 catches, and five touchdowns. Now, 13.2 PPG isn’t elite, but to almost hit 1,000 receiving yards as a rookie is very impressive.
From there, Lamb would see an uptick in his PPG mark all the way until 2023. Lamb went from 13.2 to 14.6, then 17.7 before setting a career high of 23.7 PPG in 2023. That year, Lamb had 135 catches for 1,749 yards and 12 touchdowns.
Lamb would have another good year with 17.6 PPG in 2024, but the reason this is an interesting discussion is because of what Lamb did last year. Outside of Lamb’s rookie year, he had his second worst PPG mark of all-time, scoring just 14.3 PPG.
Part of that was due to injury, but it's still a bit concerning. That raises the question for fantasy football managers on whether they should look to draft or avoid Lamb in their 2026 fantasy football drafts.
Starting with this past year, Lamb suffered an ankle injury in week three, so although he missed time, it seems reasonable to assume that he wasn’t 100% last year.
The first two games are a small sample size, but it’s worth noting that Lamb had 18 points in week one and 20.2 in week two.
Outside of that, the other question is what about George Pickens? There’s no doubt that Pickens is a talented player, and he scored 17.2 PPG this past year.
Although Pickens was previously on the Pittsburgh Steelers, he had never crossed 13 PPG in any of his first three years. I still view Lamb as the most talented wide receiver in this Cowboys room, and if he’s healthy for all of 2026, expect him to reclaim that role.
The reason for this is that despite Pickens being a threat to Lamb for targets, Dallas doesn’t have many other options. Jake Ferguson had 600 yards as the third leading receiver as a tight end.
When you take into account that Dak Prescott had 4,552 passing yards, there’s more than enough volume to go around.
For that reason, there’s a real shot that Pickens can still score 15-17 PPG while Lamb gets back to that 17 PPG range himself.
It’s going to be interesting to see where Lamb ends up being drafted, but right now his ADP is the WR5 on FantasyPros.
At that cost, I’m not going to be the biggest fan of Lamb this year. While I’m not sold that he’s going to be around 14 PPG range again, it also seems as if a 20 plus PPG season is out of the picture.
A few wide receivers that I’d rather draft over Lamb are Drake London and A.J. Brown, both who are ranked slightly behind him. London is the WR7 with Brown at WR8, so it’s not as if Lamb being ranked here is that big of a gap.
But when looking at the overall ADP, Lamb is up at 12 while Brown is at 22. It’s not that I don’t think Lamb can bounce back, but at their 2026 fantasy football ADP’s, there are better options being drafted behind Lamb right now.
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