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There is a ton of excitement surrounding the 2020 Dallas Cowboys season. Some of that is due to having a new coaching staff in charge, while some of it can be because the season itself is in some doubt right now, so many are just hoping to see some kind of football this fall.
Another source of excitement for the upcoming season stems from the pass-catching trio on the Dallas Cowboys roster featuring Pro Bowl receiver Amari Cooper, rising third-year target Michael Gallup, and rookie stud CeeDee Lamb. The first two combined for 2,296 yards and 14 touchdowns a season ago.
Gallup emerged as a legit number two option while playing opposite of Cooper. Lamb, meanwhile, blossomed into a star on the college level as he wreaked havoc on defenses each and every week, earning consensus All-American honors and being named a finalist for the Biletnikoff Award in 2019. Adding that kind of talent to the aforementioned duo gives an endless amount of possibilities for Mike McCarthy and Kellen Moore on offense.
Since the Cowboys drafted Lamb in the first-round of April’s NFL Draft, there has been a lot of debate over where the trio ranks across the league. If solely focusing on just wide receivers, the Cowboys have a legitimate claim to having the best three.
When throwing in an another pass catcher — say, tight end or running back — where does the group rank? The Draft Network’s Trevor Sikkema set out to rank the NFL’s five best pass-catching trios, and Dallas landed at four on the list.
4. DALLAS COWBOYS
The Trio: Amari Cooper, Michael Gallup, CeeDee Lamb
What do you get when you take two 1,000-yard wide receivers and then add one of the best wide receivers in college football in the first round? You get the Dallas Cowboys.
Amari Cooper is good; this has been confirmed over the years. His footwork and his route-running make him a tough matchup against any cornerback, any week. Michael Gallup, on the other hand, while he enjoyed some production in a secondary role as a rookie in 2018, really exploded in 2019, starting in 12 games seeing 113 targets and hauling in 1,106 receiving yards and six receiving touchdowns. As Dallas is slated to return their quarterback Dak Prescott, one of the top offensive lines in football, and a great back in Ezekiel Elliott, that explosiveness in the offense from the two stud wide receivers should always be available.
The only difference is when those two get more attention this year, the Cowboys have an incredibly fortunate situation on their hands with CeeDee Lamb as another option. It is hard to imagine anyone in the NFL with the defensive back room to handle those three for a full 60 minutes.
That last sentence from Sikkema — “it is hard to imagine anyone in the NFL with the defensive back room to handle those three for a full 60 minutes” — has to be music to Cowboys fans ears. While Randall Cobb was a fine receiver during his first and only season in Dallas, Lamb brings impressive hands and special playmaking ability that the veteran Kentucky product just doesn’t posses.
Only the Buccaneers with Mike Evans, Chris Godwin, and Rob Gronkowski, the Chiefs with Tyreek Hill, Travis Kelce and your choice of Mecole Hardman or Sammy Watkins, and the Saints with Michael Thomas, Emmanuel Sanders, and Jared Cook have a better “pass-catching trio” than the Cowboys, per Sikkema’s article.
Cooper was recently ranked as the 10th best wideout in all of football in a recent poll from ESPN that included opinions from league executives, coaches, and players, while many believe that Gallup is one of the more underrated players across the league. After all, it is not every day that we see a second-year player that recorded 1,107 yards and eight touchdowns in 14 games be forgotten about when talking about offensive weapons.
Adding Lamb to the mix just makes things even juicier. While we continue to wait to see if the Cowboys get a deal done with Prescott, it is hard to contain the enthusiasm surrounding the Cowboys Big Three at wide receiver.