OXNARD, Calif. — There's no question or doubt about the full potential of the Dallas Cowboys this season.
Sure, you could say that expectations have exceeded reality in the past, but that's not the feeling we get with this team, right? Talking to the team itself, the high expectation of winning a Super Bowl ring throughout the locker room and the mindset in training camp.
Even for a young player like CeeDee Lamb – who will be entering his fourth season in 2023 – there's a clear understanding of the pieces being in place and it comes down to purely executing on Sundays this fall.
"We just gotta stay consistent," Lamb said. "Keep the main thing, the main thing. Stay focused and continue to be the team that we're supposed to be. Not really getting too high, not getting too low if anything happens."
"At the end of the day, we just have to go handle our job, handle our responsibility and win the game. If we win, everything falls into place."
Lamb could look at his personal accolades that he's accumulated through three seasons and see an opportunity to raise the high bar he has already set, but stats are pointless in his eyes without a Lombardi Trophy.
"A successful year for me is to win a Super Bowl," he said. "Regardless of what my numbers look like. Obviously, we need 1,000-plus, but I'm not really too fond of that."
There's a sense of urgency with the current team, and it's something that owner Jerry Jones has even acknowledged at camp.
Keeping mass amounts of talent together for long periods of time is difficult to accomplish in the salary cap era, which is why 2023 is being viewed as the most "open" the window will be by the fanbase.
"I've never thought that there was a time to sluff off," Jones said. "And not that urgency means not sluffing off – but I think when we look at where we are with Dak, where we are with Tyron Smith, what I've experienced on players that have played great for the Cowboys that aren't here today, we need to get it done now while we got them. I think that's healthy for everybody and I think that's the way my competition is structured."
That self-described urgency has created a centered mindset within the locker room, and it's something that Tyler Biadasz has seen be focused on through camp, starting with one rep at a time.
"I think the main message out of all of this is we're here to win every rep," Biadasz said. "That effort, we have to keep pressing that tempo and we gotta keep going. I think even the rookies and all of those guys, we have a great room on offense and we're definitely striving for that greatness."
"We're chasing perfection and we're chasing greatness in that excellence of who we are."
