FRISCO, Texas — On the threshold of his seventh season, the latest No. 88 for the Dallas Cowboys soon will be competing with George Pickens for passes and with Quinyon Mitchell and Deonte Banks for space.
And then CeeDee Lamb will be competing with three long shadows for his place in Cowboys lore.
The Cowboys’ 88 tradition is like no other, as the number has passed from Drew Pearson to Michael Irvin to Dez Bryant to Lamb, and between them, the 88s have 10 All-Pros, 16 Pro Bowls, four Super Bowl rings and two bronze busts.
Lamb is responsible for three of those All-Pros and five of those Pro Bowls but is coming off a season he was not pleased with, his least productive since his rookie year. So more than ever, he is determined to represent the number with dignity. He believes he will, partly because wisdom has been passed down along with his number.
“I feel smarter,” he says. “It’s just so close, and all it takes is a little more locking in.”
Lamb’s ambition is to be the best of the 88s. It is not an unreasonable aspiration.
“The 88 we got now is the most talented of us all,” Irvin says. “Drew was all about big plays. Small body, but he could get across that middle. I was just going to bully you. You know, not fast, none of that. Dez was a beast playing basketball outside. But CeeDee Lamb has all of it. He has all of it.”
The significance of No. 88 and the Dallas Cowboys
Dan Pompei
Before the catch and after, Lamb combines finesse and power better than any of the 88s — or almost anyone else, for that matter. He creates separation like a good divorce lawyer, and his catch radius seems to range from the Fort Worth Stockyards to the Dallas Museum of Art.
Lamb probably would need a ring on one, two or three of his fingers to be crowned king of the 88s, but statistically, he is in their company. He needs just 44 yards to pass Bryant on the Cowboys’ all-time receiving list and 407 to pass Pearson. He trails Irvin by 4,488 yards, but if Lamb goes over 1,000 receiving yards this year for the sixth straight time, he will break a tie with Irvin for most consecutive 1,000-yard seasons.
Lamb says every time he opens his locker and sees 88, he thinks about the expectations — yours, his, theirs.
“When I have a big game, everybody celebrates,” he says. “When I have a bad game, there’s a lot of scrutiny, right? It’s a different magnitude when you’re in Dallas. And then it’s heightened when you wear 88.”
To understand why Irvin believes the number is “spiritual,” “divine” and “prophetic,” why it’s “the perfect looking number” and why, to him, it means “everything,” go back 53 years. As some NFL scouts wound their way from the University of Oklahoma to Oklahoma State, they stopped in Tulsa for a coffee or maybe something colder. While there, they checked out a defensive back and a defensive tackle but weren’t very interested in a wide receiver who had converted from quarterback as a junior. Pearson didn’t have the numbers, having caught 55 passes over two seasons and weighing 165 pounds. He ran for them anyway, registering a 4.6 in the 40-yard dash while wearing sweatpants so they couldn’t see his stork legs.
In January of 1973, 442 players were selected in the draft. Pearson was not among them. But he reported to the Cowboys that year with 82 other undrafted players and 17 draft picks. On a team that made it to the NFC Championship Game the year before and won the Super Bowl the year before that, Pearson wasn’t a long shot as much as a no-shot.
Between two-a-day practices in training camp that year, he worked a job with Merchant’s Van Lines for $10 an hour, loading trucks with refrigerators, televisions, furniture and caskets in heat that would make a mess of a chocolate bar.
For his first exhibition game against the Los Angeles Rams at the Los Angeles Coliseum, the jersey he found in his locker was No. 13, which nobody who was supposed to stick around would be wearing. But his feel between the line of scrimmage and the goal post was special, and he practiced with such gusto that he earned the favor of quarterback Roger Staubach. Somehow, Pearson made the team.
Wide receivers had to wear numbers in the 80s in those days, and the only available numbers were 85 and 88.
“Eighty-five didn’t sound right,” Pearson said. “What really sounded right was 88.”
Pearson was so thin that the first time he put his jersey on, the two eights overlapped, and it looked like his number was 8. He had to learn to tuck it in so both 8s showed. But he wore it well, starting six games as a rookie and becoming an All-Pro in his second season. With an abundance of instinct and a deficit of self-preservation, Pearson lasted 11 years and made so many game-changing catches that he became known as “Mr. Clutch.”
And that’s why No. 88 was Walter Irvin’s favorite player.
Michael Irvin, above, checked with Drew Pearson before agreeing to wear No. 88 and then surpassed Pearson’s achievements with the Cowboys. (Paul Buck / AFP via Getty Images)
A Baptist preacher known as “Rev,” Walter was the father of 17 children, the 15th of whom was Michael. While Walter’s wife, Pearl, managed the kids, Walter fixed roofs with a pry bar and hammer during the week, then raised them with his sermons on the Lord’s Day.
Afterward, he always made time to watch America’s Team play America’s game. So devoted to the Cowboys was Rev that he wore his Tom Landry-style fedora to cheer for them in his living room. Young Michael had a seat next to Rev on their couch when Pearson caught the original “Hail Mary” from Staubach.
“He would always jump up when Drew scored a touchdown,” Michael says.
Predestiny? Michael’s sister Janet Carter is 10 years older than Michael. They always said she and Michael were Rev’s favorites. When Michael was 12, long before anyone else envisioned him as “The Playmaker,” Janet had a dream — she was walking through Texas Stadium with her little brother, who was a Dallas Cowboy.
As a senior at St. Thomas Aquinas High, Irvin played wide receiver for the first time and wore No. 80 because his favorite player was tight end Kellen Winslow, No. 80 for the San Diego Chargers. Winslow played with the same relentlessness as Irvin.
At the University of Miami, Irvin didn’t have a choice. They told Irvin he would wear 47. He protested to coach Jimmy Johnson, saying 47 was not a cool number.
“You know what I see when I see you wearing 47?” Johnson told him. “I see a 747 coming down the runway, ready to land for a touchdown.”
“Really, Coach?” the young Irvin said. “OK, I’ll take 47.”
The player and coach won a national championship at Miami and two Super Bowls together with the Cowboys, and then one day, Johnson, after a Heineken or three, told Irvin, “I can’t believe you bought that story about 47.”
Rev never saw any of it. He died before Michael’s senior year of high school. But Rev and Janet were in agreement about where Michael was headed.
Janet was so certain Michael would be a Cowboy that on draft day in ’88 — there’s that number again — she went shopping during the early selections, knowing she had time before the Cowboys picked 11th.
Michael, the final first-round pick of Landry’s career, was blown away when he was given his number, Pearson’s number.
“That was my dad,” Michael says. “You see what I’m saying? That was my dad.”
When Pearson heard the news, he was initially disappointed. No one had worn 88 since he retired, and he thought the number would be set aside like Staubach’s No. 12 had been. But then he thought about it.
What if he were a vessel?
What if Irvin and others could enhance the standard of excellence he established?
What if 88 became a legacy — his legacy?
When Irvin arrived in Dallas as a Cowboy for the first time, it was Pearson who greeted him at the airport. It was emotional, and they embraced. Ostensibly, Pearson was there to interview him for a local television station for which he was working. But really, he was there to pass the baton.
Irvin: “They want me to wear No. 88. Is that OK?”
Pearson: “I’m good with it. But only if you don’t do what I did. You have to do more than I did.”
Irvin did what Pearson asked, playing one more season than Pearson did and becoming one of the most forceful players ever seen, a linebacker disguised as a wide receiver and the vanguard of a dynasty. With a vicious push-off and a slick swim, Irvin was a monster on the slant route. And once he had the ball, he was as tough to take down as an old oak tree.
Whenever Irvin looked at his number before a game, he told himself he would not let Pearson down that day. And when he found himself in the end zone with the football, Irvin felt the same jolt of excitement he had felt from Rev whenever Pearson scored.
Eleven years later came the next great 88.
Bryant, who grew up about 170 miles southeast of AT&T Stadium in Lufkin, Texas, fell in the 2010 draft, so Cowboys owner Jerry Jones moved up three spots to take him with the 24th pick of the first round. Bryant wore No. 1 at Oklahoma State. When he was told about the plan to make him the new 88, he expressed unease. But while his signing bonus may have been negotiable, his jersey number was not. Jones, you see, was selling Bryant 88 jerseys before Bryant ever wore one.
Pearson and Irvin met with Bryant shortly and tried to make him understand. They were convincing, and Bryant embraced the number and all that came with it, catching 73 touchdown passes for the Cowboys, more than anyone in team history, and celebrating them with his signature “X” gesture.
A fireball is what he was, sometimes to his credit and then to his detriment. So after eight seasons, with Bryant’s receiving numbers dipping and his salary rising, the Cowboys took back the 29-year-old’s iPad and thanked him for the memories. In brief stints with the Saints and Ravens, he was still 88.
The Cowboys’ 88 Club, featuring CeeDee Lamb, from left, Drew Pearson, Dez Bryant and Michael Irvin, was featured in a 2022 Chipotle commercial. (Courtesy of Chipotle Mexican Grill)
Like Bryant, Lamb had mixed feelings about wearing 88 when the Cowboys chose him 17th in 2020. At Oklahoma, he was No. 2 and felt attached to the number, but at the time, wide receivers couldn’t wear single-digit numbers in the NFL.
Cowboys equipment director Mike McCord presented Lamb with his options. He explained about 88, thinking Lamb would be eager to become the next link in the chain. But Lamb let McCord know he intended to start his own tradition. He picked 10.
Jones, not surprisingly, had something to say about it. He told Lamb about someone he played with at Arkansas, a two-time all-conference wide receiver and a captain on the 1964 national championship team. More brother than teammate, he served as a groomsman in Jones’ wedding, attended most Cowboys games and became one of Jones’ most trusted football consiglieres.
His name was Lamb — Jerry Lamb.
He had worn No. 88.
And he died months before the Cowboys drafted CeeDee.
“That was very much a part of my motivation to have CeeDee wear 88,” Jones says.
CeeDee had a change of heart about 88 and called Irvin to make sure he was good with it.
In the 2005 motion picture “The Longest Yard,” Irvin played Deacon Moss, the Mean Machine’s star wide receiver. For Irvin, playing Moss didn’t require much acting.
The movie debuted when Lamb was 6. He loved it and was drawn to Moss, who also wore 88. As reality blended with fiction on the screen, Lamb admired Irvin/Moss’ energy, strength of character and urgency.
“He was the receiver that you wanted to be,” Lamb says.
Irvin told Lamb not to take the number if he thought the expectations would be too much for him, but he made it clear he thought Lamb could uphold the tradition. The challenge stirred Lamb.
“I knew,” Lamb says, “that it was something that was so meant for me.”
In the coming days, Lamb’s 88, in navy blue, became the highest-selling non-quarterback jersey in the NFL.
For all that Lamb has accomplished since, 2026 feels like it could be his year. The Cowboys gave him $100 million guaranteed nearly two years ago. Jones, who knows something about investments, expects Lamb to justify this one soon.
“As I look at this year and beyond, with the offensive philosophy we have, Pickens on the other side and the supporting cast we have, you couldn’t have drawn it up better to put the spotlight on 88,” Jones says. “CeeDee is going to have opportunities.”
Lamb missed three games early last season with a high ankle sprain. Looking back, he can see that when he returned, he wasn’t the same mentally.
“It was trying to not get hurt again, which is a terrible thing to do when you’re going out there and playing a very physical game,” he says. “So now I just got to go attack, and we’ll see how it looks again.”
Those routes that Cowboys legend Troy Aikman has decried as lazy? Lamb’s been working on them during the offseason, he says, trying to improve by paying closer attention to depth, playing through contact, varying speeds effectively and improving change of direction.
Now, when Irvin greets Lamb, it’s with a kiss on the cheek. Lamb laughs about those kisses.
“He’s crazy, but Mike is Mike,” he says. “That’s what I love most about him. And I’ve learned so much from him.”
The quartet filmed a commercial for Chipotle in 2022 and bonded for a few hours after. They also spent time together at a gala benefiting Dak Prescott’s Faith Fight Finish Foundation. And Pearson, Irvin and Bryant were at AT&T Stadium in December 2023 to witness Lamb break Irvin’s team records for catches and yards in a season.
In some ways, they don’t have much in common, with 75-year-old Pearson being a Boomer, Irvin, 60, a member of Generation X, 37-year-old Bryant being a Millennial, and Lamb, 27, being Gen Z. Still, they understand one another in ways no one else could.
“Obviously, we’re in different phases of our lives, but they’ve all been where I am right now,” Lamb says. “So it’s them passing the knowledge to me, telling me about the experiences they’ve been through.”
They share quite a bit on a group text. Lamb says the conversation is often “big bro-little bro” in nature. Pearson is the encourager — he commends Lamb like a grandfather would, partly because he sees so much good in him and partly because he understands the value of encouragement. Irvin doesn’t shy from hard truths.
During and after games on that text chain, there is analysis — unfiltered analysis.
“There’s a lot of stuff that shouldn’t be said that’s being said in there,” Lamb says.
It is between the four of them and one other whom Lamb calls their “plus-one.”
Superstar singer Post Malone spent much of his childhood in Grapevine, Texas, after his father, Rich Malone, became the manager of concessions for the Cowboys. When Rich worked overnight shifts, his son, then known as Austin, slept on a cot at Texas Stadium. There is no more dedicated Cowboys fan.
Irvin met Malone at a Super Bowl party. Malone wore a Cowboys jersey — No. 88.
And then Malone popped up in their group chat, surprising three of the 88s.
“I wanted to bring him in,” Irvin says.
Pearson gave his approval, and now they call Malone the “honorary 88.”
Other Cowboys who wore the number without performing up to its standards are not in the 88 club. That includes Antonio Bryant, best known not for a catch but a toss. He was the most productive rookie of all the 88s but was sent on his way after throwing his No. 88 jersey in the face of his coach, Bill Parcells.
In Terminal E, near Gate 5 at Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport, a restaurant has been selling “Mr. Clutch” BBQ meat sandwiches and End Zone Margaritas for years. It’s called “Drew Pearson’s Sports 88.” Not long ago, Pearson, Irvin, Bryant and Lamb began discussions about a restaurant bearing all their names. They found the perfect location in the Tostitos Plaza, adjacent to the Cowboys’ headquarters, and held several meetings about it. Pearson says it was close to becoming reality.
“You know what killed the deal?” Pearson says. “Egos. We couldn’t settle on who gets what. Michael’s saying, ‘I should get more.’ Dez says, ‘I need that.’ I’m saying, ‘I should get more.’ But that’s what the 88 club is all about. We want to be looked upon as the best and receive our accolades.”
Pearson considers other branding opportunities for the 88 club, but he says it’s difficult to get four yeses on any possibility. There are football helmets signed by all four. And a set of football cards — Lamb has the four cards on display in his home office.
If it were up to Lamb, four cards would be all he would ever need, and he would be the last of the 88s. He won’t be, however.
The Cowboys have never officially retired a number, but no player has worn 74 since Bob Lilly, Mr. Cowboy, walked away. The same goes for Staubach’s 12, Aikman’s 8 and Emmitt Smith’s 22. It was more challenging to keep 88 in mothballs after Pearson because, until 2004, wide receivers were required to wear numbers in the 80s.
To Jones, what’s happened with the 88s is an argument to keep every number in circulation.
“When you don’t retire the number, the player of today becomes reflective of the accomplishments of the other players who wore it,” Jones says.
The 88 club, like all traditions, is about yesterdays. But it’s about tomorrows, too.
So if anyone suggests to Irvin that the number belongs in the rafters, they will be silenced. And then he will share what Rev told him back when Pearson was starting this.
“In the Bible, 8s stand for something,” he will say. “They symbolize new beginnings.”
A retired number, after all, is like a gravestone.
Eighty-eight is a heartbeat.
