Chicago Bears Draft Countdown: Making the Case for Amari Cooper
Published by Matt Eurich on April 8, 2015
Article Source: Bleacher Report - Chicago Bears
The Chicago Bears improved their defense this offseason by adding linebackers Pernell McPhee, Mason Foster and Sam Acho, safety Antrel Rolle, cornerback Alan Ball and defensive linemen Ray McDonald and Jarvis Jenkins in free agency, meaning they could look to improve the offensive side of the football with their first pick in the NFL draft later this month.
The Bears could draft an offensive lineman or a quarterback with the seventh overall pick, but the team has a need at the wide receiver position after trading Brandon Marshall last month.
In his first big move of the offseason, new general manager Ryan Pace traded Marshall and a seventh-round pick to the New York Jets in exchange for a fifth-round pick. Marshall had three productive seasons in Chicago, but he turned into a distraction at times off the field, and Pace decided that it was time for the team to move on.
“He’s a good football player,” Pace said last month, according to Michael C. Wright of ESPN Chicago. “Going forward, we felt this was the best for us. Quite frankly, it’s the best situation for him, too. So that’s where we’re at.”
Marshall hauled in 279 catches for 3,524 yards with 31 touchdowns in 45 games over his three years with the Bears, and the team will now have to look for his replacement. Alshon Jeffery is expected to take over as the team’s No. 1 receiver in 2015, but the Bears currently lack much depth behind him. Pace did add veteran receiver Eddie Royal in free agency, but Royal will likely spend the season working out of the slot.
Pace acknowledged earlier this offseason that the team still needs help at the receiver position.
“I would say the receiver position, we are looking at that. We are exploring that in free agency, in the draft,” Pace said, per Wright.
This year’s draft has a lot of talent at the wide receiver position, and the Bears should consider taking Alabama’s Amari Cooper with their first pick. He was a Heisman Trophy finalist last season and caught 124 passes for 1,727 yards and 16 touchdowns in coordinator Lane Kiffin’s pro-style offense.
So why should the Bears take Cooper with their first pick in the 2015 draft?
He Would Take Pressure Off Alshon Jeffery
With Marshall out of the picture, the Bears will likely need to lean heavily on Jeffery in the passing game, but adding Cooper could help take some of the pressure off the team’s No. 1 target.
Jeffery thrived in Chicago’s offense the last two seasons due in large part to having Marshall lined up on the opposite side of the field. Marshall’s presence alone forced teams to pick and choose their battles in terms of whom they wanted to double-team in the passing game.
NFL.com’s Bucky Brooks thinks that Cooper is good enough already to command double-teams in the NFL.
“The No. 1 receiver in your offense should be able to command a double-team, and you absolutely have to double-team him to contain him,” Brooks said about Cooper in February on NFL Now, via Chase Goodbread of NFL.com. “…But what I really like about him, he is a guy who is still hungry, working on his craft. I think he’s going to be better as a pro than he was as a collegian.”
Nick Saban, Cooper’s head coach at Alabama, also thinks that Cooper can attract double-teams.
“He’s good against press [coverage], so he’s a pretty hard guy to stop unless you put two guys on him,” Saban said, according to Andrew Gribble of AL.com.
Jeffery has only played three full games in his career without Marshall, so there are still some questions about whether or not he can handle being the team’s go-to receiver. Adding Cooper to the mix alongside Jeffery and Royal would force opposing defenses to choose one receiver to limit, leaving the other two with opportunities to make plays against single coverage.
He Is Technically Sound
In Bleacher Report’s player comparison video above, Matt Miller compares Cooper to former Indianapolis Colts receiver Reggie Wayne. Just like Wayne, Cooper is a possession receiver who consistently runs crisp routes and uses good technique to create separation.
Cooper showed off his great route-running ability against Auburn late last year in the Iron Bowl.
Cooper lined up to the right of quarterback Blake Sims and faced press coverage from Auburn on the outside. Auburn’s cornerback was supposed to redirect Cooper at line of scrimmage, but Cooper got a free release and worked his way into the middle of the field.
The safety picked him up in coverage, but Cooper dipped both his head and hips and broke to the outside before working his way back inside. The safety bit on the fake, and Cooper came away with the easy touchdown.
That touchdown is just one example of how well Cooper runs his routes, and Bleacher Report’s Matt Bowen thinks that Cooper’s technique and route-running ability are what make him a top-10 talent in this year’s draft, writing:
This isn’t a receiver that has to sink his hips, restart and go find the football. It’s all fluid with Cooper, and that allows him to create separation versus man coverage. Plus, he has the lateral quickness to beat press coverage and get up the field (a key to winning at the line versus NFL competition).
Cooper’s route running was on display during positional drills at the combine. He followed that up with a pro-day performance that an NFL scout simply described as “electric.” The hands to snatch the ball, the sweet footwork, the burst in his routes. It was all there.
Cooper’s impressive route running is not limited to just a couple of routes. In addition to being able to create separation on a post route like he did against Auburn, as pictured above, he has also been successful when running slants, curls, outs and any other routes that he has been asked to run.
What makes him dangerous as a route-runner is that he has the ability to run at full speed and make cuts without ever having to slow down. He is also good at not tipping off what route he is going to run, and he talked about that at the NFL Scouting Combine in February, saying, according to Bill Williamson of ESPN.com:
You don’t want to give the defensive back any signals about what route you’re going to run. Every time I run a route, I try to make it seem like I’m running a different route than I’m actually running so I can get open. … I take good pride in the way I release off the line and coming out of my breaks. That’s really the only two ways you can get open. I think that’s probably what would separate me from someone else.
In addition to being one of the most technically sound receivers in this year’s draft, Cooper is also a playmaker.
He Is a Versatile Playmaker
In Cooper’s final season at Alabama, he spent the majority of his time playing on the outside, but he also showed that he can be effective out of the slot.
He ran a 4.42-second 40-yard dash at the combine, and even though he was not among the fastest at his position, his speed is evident on game tape.
“He’s dominant in the slot,” Hall of Fame receiver Cris Carter said on SportsCenter last month, via Michael Casagrande of AL.com. “You can’t play bump and run coverage because he’s so quick with great acceleration off the ball. He has great football speed. When he’s on the football field, he’s just as fast as he is in shorts doing the 40 time.”
Even though the Bears brought Royal in to play in the slot, Cooper has the ability to move inside and be a playmaker by creating mismatches with both his size (6’1″, 211 lbs) and speed.
Once he gets down into the red zone, he can be lined up either inside or outside, and he does a great job of getting himself in the right position to make a play in traffic. He also has good hands and fights to pick up extra yards after the catch.
No other wide receiver in this year’s draft is as polished as Cooper, and if the Bears want someone who can take the pressure off Jeffery in the passing game and has the ability to be a playmaker on offense from day one, he should be their choice with the seventh overall pick in this month’s draft.
All screenshots were made using videos from Draft Breakdown. Statistical information courtesy of Sports-Reference.com and NFL.com.
Matt Eurich is a Chicago Bears Featured Columnist for Bleacher Report and a member of the Pro Football Writers of America.
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