CeeDee Lamb Stunned Cowboys Had Just Two Second-Half Possessions in 28-20 Loss to Giants
CeeDee Lamb finished Sunday night’s 28-20 loss at MetLife Stadium with five catches for 44 yards and a touchdown. For a receiver of his caliber that reads like a quiet night, and the easy story is that Dallas needs to get him the ball more.
Then someone told Lamb that the Cowboys possessed the football only twice in the entire second half, and his reaction said everything. “Oh, I ain’t know that. That’s crazy. That’s crazy. Good to know.”
Twice. Two drives across thirty minutes of football in a one-score game. Lamb did not have a bad night. He barely had a night at all.
The time of possession is almost hard to believe
Dallas held the ball for 23 minutes and 20 seconds. New York held it for 36:40. That is a 13-minute gap in a game the Cowboys lost by eight.
The second half opened with a 12-play Giants drive that ate more than eight minutes and finished with an Isaiah Likely touchdown. Dallas answered with a 12-play scoring drive of its own, capped by Javonte Williams. In the fourth quarter the Giants had both the first and the last possession, and Dallas’ lone drive in between ended in another Williams touchdown.
Read that sequence again. The Cowboys’ offense scored on both of its second-half possessions. They went two-for-two and still lost.
That is the whole diagnosis right there. When Dallas had the ball, it worked. The problem is a defense that could not force New York into a punt or a turnover often enough to give the offense a third crack at anything.
Blame the defense, not the target share
Everyone is going to spend this week asking why CeeDee Lamb only saw five catches. Wrong question. You cannot manufacture targets on drives that never happen.
A defense that cannot get off the field turns your best player into a spectator, and it turns a manageable deficit into a clock problem. The Giants did not need to be explosive. They just needed to keep the ball, and they kept it for over 36 minutes.
The injury news does not help. Safety Malik Hooker fractured his wrist, reported elsewhere as a fractured left forearm suffered in the third quarter, and had surgery scheduled for Tuesday. Linebacker DeMarvion Overshown suffered a hamstring injury. Brian Schottenheimer said both are looking at a one-to-two-week timetable and neither is expected to land on injured reserve.
Short absences, which is the good news. But losing a starting safety and a linebacker on a night your defense let the opponent hold the ball for 36 minutes is not the setup you want heading into Week 2.
Dallas hosts Washington at AT&T Stadium next. The fix is not a new route tree for Lamb or a change in play-calling philosophy. It is getting stops, because an offense that converted both of its second-half opportunities into points does not need to be redesigned.
It just needs the ball.
A longtime sports reporter, Carlos Garcia has written about some of the biggest and most notable athletic events of the last 5 years. He has been credentialed to cover MLS, NBA and MLB games all over the United States. His work has been published on Fox Sports, Bleacher Report, AOL and the Washington Post.