Every Dallas Cowboys game draws a massive audience, but throw in Thanksgiving and a polarizing opponent like the Kansas City Chiefs, and you’ve got the recipe for a ratings monster.

As if the game needed any more juice, CeeDee Lamb is his own storyline following his three-drop game against the Philadelphia Eagles and subsequent outburst after his dropped go-ahead touchdown in the final minutes of regulation. Lamb subjected himself to more criticism by not making himself available to the media after the win.

While Lamb is focused on being “solution-oriented,” as he told reporters on Tuesday, Cowboys fans would like the offense to run through Georg Pickens until Lamb is 100 percent back. However, Brian Schottenheimer doesn’t see it that way.

“He’s got that look in his eye that (he) means business,” Schottenheimer said of Lamb. “He’s ready to play. There will be plenty of balls going to 88 Thursday afternoon.”

Cowboys HC Brian Schottenheimer wants to feed CeeDee Lamb vs. the Chiefs

That aligns with what Schottenheimer said about Lamb’s potential workload against the Chiefs following Sunday’s comeback win.

“There are some weeks that you have great games, and other weeks where you’re like, ‘Hey man, yeah, I didn’t play as good as I can play.’ But when we start drawing up plays for Kansas City, I’ll give them a little heads up, there will be a lot of them going to 88,” Schottenheimer said.

That is both exciting and terrifying.

It’s exciting in that Lamb is a terrific player, and players of his caliber generally bounce back in a big way after a poor showing. Lamb did exactly that after he dropped four passes (TruMedia only credited him with three drops) against the Eagles in Week 1. He was a catalyst in the Cowboys’ overtime victory versus the Giants in Week 2, catching 9 of 11 targets for 112 yards.

Lamb has a history of rising to the occasion after a bad game. But it is terrifying to think of Schottenheimer force-feeding him targets to help restore his confidence.

It was apparent that Dak Prescott tried to get Lamb going against the Eagles after his early drops, and it just didn’t work. Granted, Lamb still finished with four catches for 75 yards, but he was targeted 11 times. If you discount the drops, Prescott and Lamb failed to connect on four separate targets.

Pardon the basketball analogy, but maybe Lamb just needs to see a couple of balls go through the hoop. A few catches, regardless of the difficulty, might be what snaps Lamb out of his funk.

And for all of the mental hurdles that Lamb navigated on Sunday, he still came through with arguably the biggest play of the game for Dallas, torquing his body to make a 48-yard catch right along the sideline late in the third quarter. The Cowboys scored three plays later to pull within seven points.

Moral of the story? Cowboys fans should expect a lot of CeeDee Lamb on Thanksgiving. That’s been a recipe for success since he was drafted in 2020, but George Pickens is on an all-time heater right now. Pickens will see plenty of volume, but Schottenheimer’s remarks will have Dallas supporters chewing off their fingernails until the first appetizer comes out on Thursday.