Dallas Cowboys struggles: Michael Irvin says team should have kept Amari Cooper
Lost in all the attention being given to the Dallas Cowboys distressing quarterback situation was the woeful play of the receiver corps in the 19-3 season-opening loss to the Tampa Bay Buccaneers.
With starter Dak Prescott out for possibly four-to-six weeks after undergoing surgery to repair a fractured thumb, much of the attention has gone to the quarterback position leading up to this week’s game against Cincinnati.
But what about the receiving corps? CeeDee Lamb, who was elevated to the No. 1 receiver following the trade of Amari Cooper to the Cleveland Browns last March, struggled in his new role in the season opener.
He had just two catches for 29 yards on 11 targets. His catch percentage of 18.2 was the lowest of any wide receiver in the NFL who had at least five targets in Week 1.
“I think we’ve certainly got to step up and do better,” Cowboys executive vice president Stephen Jones said on 105.3 The Fan on Monday. “The passing game goes hand-in-hand, the quarterback and the receivers. Certainly, we’ve got to be better there. CeeDee has got to improve and work his way into being the No. 1 receiver we think he can [be].”
That the Cowboys are opening saying that Lamb has to work to be a No. 1 receiver brings into question their off-season decision making. But more on that later.
As the team’s only proven receiver, the Cowboys were trying to get him the ball and the Buccaneers tailored their defense to stop him.
“This is the world CeeDee is living in now,” coach Mike McCarthy said. “He’s going to get all the attention. That was apparent [last] Sunday.”
McCarthy expects the Cincinnati Bengals to do the same in this Sunday’s game at AT&T Stadium and Lamb can’t prove that he can handle double and triple coverage, it will make things even tougher for Cooper Rush, who is starting at quarterback until Prescott returns.
What made things even tougher against the Buccaneers and remains a question going forward is the quality of the receiver corps behind Lamb.
With Michael Gallup still recovering from a torn ACL and free agent signee James Washington out until October with a fractured foot, the Cowboys entered the Tampa Bay game with no receiver who had ever caught a touchdown pass from Prescott in Noah Brown, second-year man Simi Fehoko, rookies Dennis Houston and Jalen Tolbert and rookie kick returner KaVontae Turpin.
The results weren’t pretty. Brown caught five passes for 68 yards but three for 42 came in garbage time in the fourth quarter when the game long but decided.
Houston had two for 16 and had two for 12. Tolbert, a disappointing third-round pick, wasn’t even active for the game.
McCarthy and offensive coordinator Kellen Moore said the young receivers had trouble getting off press coverage.
“When you have a younger less experienced receiver group that is what defenses do to you,” McCarthy said. “If you can’t defeat bump and run, the NFL is not for you. That is definitely the focus for us. So we just got to keep working.”
If you let legendary Cowboys receiver and Hall of Famer Michael Irvin tell it, the Cowboys should have done more work in the off season.
Irvin the Cowboys should have never traded Amari Cooper and they should have done more to upgrade the talent at the position in the off season.
“They should have kept Amari,” Irvin said. “We would have been great if we kept Amari. We would have won that game Sunday.”
Irvin believes Lamb is going to be fine as the No. 1 receiver once he adjust to the attention being paid to him and improves on the way he catches the ball in traffic.
But he is worried about the receivers around Lamb.
He thinks they should have added another veteran receiver to the mix.
Irvin compared the Cowboys situation to 2018 when they went into the season without another No. 1 receiver following the departure of Dez Bryant and tried run their offense via a receiver-by-committee with Allen Hurns, Deonte Thompson, Cole Beasley, Terrence Williams and Brice Butler.
Prescott had less than 200 yards passing in five of the first seven games and no more than 250 in any them.
It prompted the team to trade a first-round pick to the Las Vegas Raiders for Amari Cooper, who served as the No. 1 receiver from 2018-2021, making two Pro Bowls and helping Prescott develop into a franchise quarterback.
Prescott passed 14 of 29 times for 134 yards and had third-worst passer rating of his career against the Buccaneers Sunday before being sidelined in the fourth quarter with a fractured thumb.
“We should have learned pre-Amari about trying this again post-Amari,” Irvin said.
