Amari Cooper can become the 1st receiver in Browns history to accomplish this feat — and it should happen vs. Texans
BEREA, Ohio — Amari Cooper is on the verge of a feat that no other Browns receiver or tight end has accomplished in the history of the club.
Not Hall of Famers Paul Warfield or Ozzie Newsome, not Reggie Langhorne, Brian Brennan or Webster Slaughter, and not modern-day Pro Bowl receivers such as Braylon Edwards, Josh Gordon or Jarvis Landry
A four-time Pro Bowler, Cooper is just 15 yards shy of his seventh career 1,000-yard season, which would make him the first Browns’ pass-catcher in team history — 73 years — with back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons.
“It’s kind of surprising a little bit, but at the same time it’s not,” Cooper said Thursday. “Things happen throughout the course of the season. Obviously there have been a lot of guys who played here who definitely, without a shadow of a doubt, have had the ability to go back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons. But extenuating circumstances happen, guys get injured and whatnot. So it’s definitely something I don’t take for granted, just to come out here every day and be able to grind, be able to be consistent for my teammates and for the group.
Cooper has made some spectacular catches this season, including a 51-yard TD from Joe Flacco in heavy traffic during Sunday’s 20-17 victory over the Bears. The TD, in which Cooper ran an over route across field to the right sideline, plucked the perfectly thrown ball away from three defenders, and tiptoed up the sideline into the end zone.
“He’s a pro,” said offensive coordinator Alex Van Pelt. “That’s the biggest thing. He’s a dynamic route runner. He can create space. He can break leverage, which is another one teams, they try to play true to their leverage. He has a tendency to be able to break that to his explosiveness of route running.”
976 yards in 2018 — 24 shy of the mark — and 1,174 in 2019. Newsome also came painfully close, notching 970 in 1983 and 1,001 in 1984. But no one has managed to do what Cooper should be able to achieve Sunday in Houston, where the Browns face the 8-6 Texans.
What’s more, he’s accomplished it with five different starting quarterbacks: Jacoby Brissett and Deshaun Watson last season, and Watson, Dorian Thompson-Robinson, P.J. Walker and Flacco this season. Despite the revolving door at QB, Cooper has been a rock at X receiver, always there, always making the incredible catch, and often playing hurt. Last season, he played with a core muscle injury for the last five games, and this season, he’s been playing with a rib injury for the past three games. He also came back the week after suffering a concussion without missing a beat.
That’s why he’ll cherish the back-to-back milestone.
“It’s very important,” he said. “Like I said before, just to be consistent, just to be reliable, just to be available. It means a lot to me. Being able to play through whatever circumstance and still be able to do my job, it definitely means a lot that I’m able to do that and help the team.”
