2023 Fantasy Football Player Profile: CeeDee Lamb is one of the NFL's best young receivers

CeeDee Lamb is one of the best well-rounded young wide receivers: Lamb has improved each season and is still only 24 years old.
Lamb will have different teammates around him: The Dallas Cowboys added veteran Brandin Cooks while letting a number of other players leave in free agency.
Mike McCarthy is the new play-caller: If McCarthy changes the offense to be a little more similar to his old Green Bay Packers teams, then Lamb has the potential to put up even bigger numbers.

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The fantasy football outlook series takes an in-depth look at a single player’s fantasy outlook for the 2023 season.

Last updated: 7:15 a.m. Tuesday, August 8

CeeDee Lamb‘s player outlook

Lamb is one of the best young wide receivers in the NFL.

He averaged 17.7 PPR points per game last season, which ranked sixth out of 151 wide receivers with at least 10 games played.
He’s been particularly good at making big plays — 6.4% of his routes run have turned into 15-plus-yard receptions over the last two seasons. That ranks third-highest among receivers in that time.
Part of this has been due to his ability to avoid tackles, as his 0.033 avoided tackles per route run in that time ranked fourth-most.
He played almost exclusively from the slot as a rookie. He switched to playing mostly on the outside in his sophomore season. Last year, he played slightly more in the slot compared to the outside.
He averaged a league-leading 51 receiving yards from the slot per game last season.
His career receiving grade is above 80.0 while lined up both out wide and in the slot.
His PFF receiving grade has improved each season. He achieved an 87.0 grade last season, which ranked eighth among wide receivers.
He joined the NFL at a young age, and he is only 24 years old despite already playing three seasons in the league.
Four of the seven players ahead of him in PFF grade are 29 years old or older, making Lamb one of the top-four young receivers in the NFL.
His route tree is more diverse than some of the other receivers ahead of him.
Hitch routes have made up 17.9% of his targets in his career and none of his other routes are above 13%. Compared to someone like Amon-Ra St. Brown, 24.4% of his career targets have come from out routes, while another 17.1% are from crossing routes and 15.7% from hitches.
It wouldn’t be surprising if Lamb joins the top-five NFL receivers this season, and stays among the best in the league for years to come.