{"id":148786,"date":"2023-10-04T10:00:01","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T14:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/?p=148786"},"modified":"2023-10-03T21:18:13","modified_gmt":"2023-10-04T01:18:13","slug":"the-browns-offense-needs-the-ball-in-this-players-hands","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2023\/10\/04\/the-browns-offense-needs-the-ball-in-this-players-hands\/","title":{"rendered":"The Browns Offense Needs The Ball In This Players Hands"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1><b>Veteran Wide Receiver Amari Cooper Needs Consistent Targets Regardless of Quarterback<\/b><\/h1>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Cleveland Browns suffered their second loss to another division rival on Sunday 28-3, and had season lows in a variety of offensive categories including for wide receiver Amari Cooper. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wide receiver <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2022\/03\/12\/amari-cooper-traded-to-cleveland-browns\/\" target=\"_self\">Amari Cooper<\/a> saw season lows in receptions, targets, yards, and longest reception. Partly due to a new quarterback with rookie quarterback Dorian Thompson-Robinson getting the start, but also due to a bigger issue. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The Browns went down 21-3 at halftime and failed to score the rest of the game. In a game script that favored the past, there is concern for Cooper having as little production as he did. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cooper\u2019s production should see an uptick after the bye week, as he is the veteran of a young wide receiver room.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><b>Wide Receiver Amari Cooper Does It Cooler<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Wide receiver Amari Cooper finished his final year at Alabama in 2014 with 124 receptions for 1,727 receiving yards and 16 touchdowns. This led to him being the fourth overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft by the then-Oakland <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/raiders\/\" target=\"_self\">Raiders<\/a>. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He spent a little more than three seasons in Oakland where he had a total of 225 receptions for 3,183 receiving yards and 19 touchdowns. Six games into his fourth season he saw a move that landed him in <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/cowboys\/\" target=\"_self\">Dallas<\/a>. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">He picked up right where he left off, playing nearly four years with the Cowboys and the production staying consistent. He helped power the Cowboys&#8217; offense posting 292 receptions for 3,893 receiving yards and 27 touchdowns during his tenure. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Cooper has had six seasons in which he finished between 1,005 and 1,189 yards, and in his first season with Cleveland, he posted his second-highest total.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">What an amazing touchdown by Amari Cooper.<a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/Lqi284Fwf5\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/Lqi284Fwf5<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Dov Kleiman (@NFL_DovKleiman) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/NFL_DovKleiman\/status\/1581735776622374912?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">October 16, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With a mixture of <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2023\/03\/15\/jacoby-brissett-signs-contract-with-washington-commanders\/\" target=\"_self\">Jacoby Brissett<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/2023\/07\/22\/deshaun-watson-browns-training-camp\/\" target=\"_self\">Deshaun Watson<\/a> under center,\u00a0 Cooper finished with 78 catches for 1,160 receiving yards and nine touchdowns. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Even with only three catches in the opener and just one in his previous matchup, he leads the team with 18 receptions for 259 yards and one touchdown. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Not only is he the oldest in a young wide receiver room, but nobody comes close to his accolades and his consistency. Looking at the other receiving options shows why he needs the ball as much as possible.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<h2><b>The Young Wideouts<\/b><\/h2>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The rest of the wide receiver room features fourth-year Donovan People-Jones,\u00a0 third-year Elijah Moore, second-year David Bell, and rookie Cedric Tillman. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">People-Jones is the second-longest tenured receiver, who had his best season as the Browns wide receiver two last year. He posted 61 catches, 839 receiving yards and three touchdowns. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Moore is currently looking like the new wide receiver two, the 23-year-old has 29 targets, 17 catches, and 148 yards. Tight end David Njoku is third on the team in targets, receptions, and yards. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bell and Tillman are both very young and have seen limited snaps thus far. <\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The duo has a combined seven targets and four catches through the first four games. <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This shows the importance of Cooper. In the most recent win against the <a href=\"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/category\/nfl-teams\/titans\/\" target=\"_self\">Tennessee Titans<\/a> Cooper had an outstanding game with seven catches, 116 yards, and a touchdown. Not to mention a missed call negating an extra 40 yards and a touchdown.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"twitter-tweet\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">Amari Cooper was ruled out of bounds here on a play he ended up scoring a touchdown on <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/hashtag\/TENvsCLE?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">#TENvsCLE<\/a> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XjOTfiHvzt\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">pic.twitter.com\/XjOTfiHvzt<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&mdash; Bad Sports Refs (@BadSportsRefs) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/BadSportsRefs\/status\/1706009012976730285?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\" target=\"_blank\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">September 24, 2023<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With some big tests but also favorable matchups coming up for Cooper, it is essential he returns to form and takes charge of the wide receiver room for the Browns.<\/span><\/p>\n<p>Main Photo: [Akron Beacon] &#8211; USA Today Sports<br style=\"font-weight: 400;\" \/><br style=\"font-weight: 400;\" \/><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Wide receiver Amari Cooper had an uncharacteristic showing last game but will be counted on down the stretch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4916,"featured_media":145221,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","sfio_featured_image":false,"sfio_embed_code":"","_ef_editorial_meta_date_first-draft-date":"","_ef_editorial_meta_paragraph_assignment":"","_ef_editorial_meta_checkbox_needs-photo":"","_ef_editorial_meta_number_word-count":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[36,8],"tags":[489,7809,1483,7928],"class_list":["post-148786","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nfl-news","category-browns","tag-amari-cooper","tag-cleveland-browns-news","tag-deshaun-watson","tag-elijah-moore"],"modified_by":"Michael Zimmelman","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148786","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4916"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=148786"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/148786\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145221"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=148786"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=148786"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lastwordonsports.com\/nfl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=148786"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}