CeeDee Lamb and George Pickens apparently had some fun in Sin City on the night before ‘Monday Night Football,’ with the top two receivers for the Cowboys missing the opening drive as punishment in the 33-16 win for Dallas over the Las Vegas Raiders. Jerry Jones has now addressed that again on Friday morning.
This morning, Jones was asked about the casino night supposedly had by Lamb and Pickens in Vegas while on 105.3 The Fan. While not having a problem with partying in general, he said he does have an issue with players partying the nights before games, and certainly so when they’re on the road, as those are meant to be business trips for the team.
“Yes, I do (have a problem with it),” Jones said. “And, I don’t, I think there’s – I don’t have any problem with partying. But, I do want everybody to have their – when we roll in there, and we have the team meetings, we have our special teams meeting, which it usually has most of the team involved around the special teams, except the specialists, of course? But, still.
“The idea is this is a business trip. Let’s get down to business. Let’s check it all back in Dallas, and let’s get in here. See, that’s the night that they spend the night together, as you know, they can say, but it’s not quite the same routine, let’s put it like that, that it is when you’re home.”
Lamb and Pickens were sidelined by a coach’s decision to open the game against the Raiders, with it being reported on later this week that it was due to them having a night out in Vegas on Sunday. Some of the specific details of what happened have since been refuted, but Jones described it earlier in the week as an “in-house issue” due to “meeting-type discipline” as they “had a late problem there” being out past curfew.
Even with all this, though, Lamb and Pickens both played well in the 17-point win on MNF. Pickens actually had one of the best games of his career with nine receptions on eleven targets for 144 yards and a touchdown, while Lamb had five catches on seven targets for 66 yards and a touchdown of his own. That brings them, as a duo this season, to 98 receptions in total for nine touchdowns overall, while combining for an average of 170.4 yards per game.
Having two of your best players out the night before a game in a known party city isn’t ideal, even if they performed in what was eventually a win for Dallas (4-5-1). But, Jones also noted that it’s nothing new when it comes to life sometimes in the National Football League.
