ARLINGTON – America’s Team delivered a Thanksgiving thriller on Thursday, stunning the Kansas City Chiefs 31-28 in front of a roaring AT&T Stadium crowd and a national television audience. But before the fireworks even began, cameras caught something that had Cowboys Nation holding its collective breath.
As Dak Prescott jogged out with the offense for the opening play after Kansas City deferred the coin toss, superstar wide receiver… George Pickens was nowhere to be seen.
Wait. George Pickens?
For a split second, the broadcast graphic flashed the name of the Pittsburgh Steelers’ controversial star instead of Dallas’s own No. 88, CeeDee Lamb. Social media exploded. Was this a punishment? An injury? Had the Cowboys secretly traded for Pickens overnight and nobody told us?
Then, on the very next snap, there was CeeDee Lamb – in his usual No. 88 – torching the Chiefs secondary like nothing ever happened.
Head coach Brian Schottenheimer couldn’t help but laugh when the media swarmed him post-game about the “George Pickens mystery.”
“No, no, no,” Schottenheimer said with a grin. “What was the first play? Exactly – different personnel grouping. That’s all it was. If it was injury-related, you know I’d tell you guys straight up.”
Crisis averted. Just a classic Thanksgiving broadcast glitch mixed with an 11-personnel opening script that had Lamb starting off the bench for one solitary play. The locker room got a good chuckle out of it – and then went back to celebrating one of the gutsiest wins of the season.
And nobody is laughing louder than CeeDee Lamb himself.
After a nationally-televised nightmare against the Eagles that saw drops dominate the headlines, No. 88 answered the bell in the brightest spotlight possible. Lamb torched All-Pro corner Trent McDuffie all afternoon, hauling in 7 catches for 112 yards and a touchdown – punctuated by a back-breaking 51-yard bomb in the fourth quarter that sent Chiefs Kingdom into silence and Cowboys Twitter into oblivion.
“Drops last week? Ancient history,” one veteran in the locker room told me after the game. “That’s what 88s do on this team – they respond. CeeDee just reminded everybody why he’s the best receiver in the NFC East, maybe the league.”
From Cooper to Dez to Amari and now Lamb, wearing 88 in Dallas has always come with massive expectations – and massive performances when the stakes are highest.
On Thanksgiving 2025, CeeDee Lamb didn’t just silence the doubters.
He sent a message that’s still echoing across the NFC East: The Cowboys are very much alive – and their superstar is locked in.
Lock(er room) it down. The Cowboys are rolling, and the division just felt the shockwave.