LAS VEGAS \u2014 Dallas Cowboys wide receivers CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens were benched for the team\u2019s opening drive against the Las Vegas Raiders on Monday night.<\/p>\n
Instead, the Cowboys started receivers Jalen Tolbert, Ryan Flournoy and KaVontae Turpin.<\/p>\n
Dallas coach Brian Schottenheimer said after the\u00a0Cowboys’ 33-16 win\u00a0that he \u201cmade a coach\u2019s decision\u201d and that \u201cthere were some things that were missed,” but refused to elaborate.<\/p>\n
The discipline clearly didn\u2019t add any tension to the Cowboys’ sideline or detract from the receiving tandem’s energy.<\/p>\n
Pickens tied a career high with nine catches and had his third-best yardage total with 144,\u00a0along with a touchdown, while Lamb finished with five receptions for 66 yards\u00a0and a TD.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou look at the energy those guys play with, they literally jump-started the offence when they got back in there,\u201d Schottenheimer said. \u201cThey didn\u2019t hang their heads. They didn\u2019t do any of that stuff. And that\u2019s why I love those guys, man.\u201d<\/p>\n
The ESPN telecast showed Schottenheimer playfully interacting with his star receiving duo on the bench.<\/p>\n
With his second-quarter touchdown, Lamb became the third-fastest Cowboys player to reach 40 touchdown receptions (88 games), behind only Bob Hayes (48) and Dez Bryant (59).<\/p>\n
Lamb also passed Bryant (531) for third in receptions in franchise history. The sixth-year player has 536 catches. Three of Lamb\u2019s receptions went for at least 14 yards.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust stepping up and playing, playing how we play, man, doing what we do,\u201d Lamb said. \u201cWe out there for a reason, and it was fun.\u201d<\/p>\n
Asked why he and Pickens were benched for the opening drive, Lamb was tight-lipped.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m not going in depth on that,\u201d Lamb said. \u201cHonestly, I\u2019m not. I\u2019m sorry, I\u2019m not.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"LAS VEGAS \u2014 Dallas Cowboys wide receivers CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens were benched for the team\u2019s opening…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":290680,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[436],"tags":[49,48,514,82],"class_list":{"0":"post-290679","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nfl","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-nfl","11":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290679","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=290679"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/290679\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/290680"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=290679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=290679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=290679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}