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By Calvin Watkins Jul 5, 2019
If there are any concerns about giving Cowboys wide receiver Amari Cooper a large contract, they hinge on the consistency of his hands.
An act Cooper has performed his entire football life, from youth ball in Miami to the NFL has eluded him at times during his career.
Cooper led the NFL with 18 drops in 2015. Heading into the 2018 season, he had the fourth-worst drop rate among NFL receivers at 13.62 percent. Last season, between Oakland and Dallas, Cooper dropped six passes, tied for 18th-most in the NFL. The Cowboys don’t seem concerned with Cooper’s occasional drops and don’t regard them as a long-term problem.
When Cooper was in Oakland, however, the issue raised the ire of many fans, especially after his 18-drop rookie campaign. He followed up that season with 10 combined drops between 2016 and 2017, but some fans had already made a connection.
Cooper is considered one of the top receivers in the NFL and enters a contract year seeking one of the largest wide receiver deals in league history.
Drops are a natural coefficient of competition. Mistakes happen in the NFL. The more you throw at a wide receiver, the likelier he is to accrue drops.
If anything, Cooper has said he doesn’t need many targets to become an impactful player.
“I’ve never heard a receiver say that,” former Cowboys wide receiver and Hall of Famer Michael Irvin said. “’I don’t need 15-16 targets a game, just give me my eight or nine, and I’ll catch seven or eight passes.’ It tells you he’s efficient. He’s efficient, and that’s a great thing.”
Cooper’s career catch rate of 59.8 percent is low compared to other elite players. He does have 278 career catches since entering the league in 2015, but during that time, former Cowboys receiver Cole Beasley caught 228 passes with a catch rate of 70.6 percent. Antonio Brown has 447 catches with a catch rate of 65.9 percent. Julio Jones, seeking his own long-term contract extension, has 420 receptions with a catch rate of 64.6 percent.
Randall Cobb, whom the Cowboys signed in free agency to replace Beasley, has 243 receptions since 2015 with a catch rate of 66.4 percent.
It’s easy to say slot receivers such as Beasley and Cobb should have higher catch rates with the shorter routes they take. But Brown’s and Jones’ efficiency diminishes the notion that outside receivers, who run deeper routes, can’t have high catch rates.
Drops are not as simple to track as they seem. Just as sacks can be attributed to multiple linemen — or the quarterback — drops can be a product of a poor throw, a deflection, a lack of concentration or any number of other things. Wide receivers, however, seem to view them more concretely.
“Whenever that ball touches your hand and the next thing it touches is the ground,” Irvin said of what he views as a dropped pass. “It matters if its a bad (throw) if you can’t touch it. But whenever that ball touches your hand, that’s it, that’s what constitutes a drop. That’s the only way you can make it what it is. I know this league measures it in different ways, but the purist, that’s how they look at it.”
“If it hits your hand but it’s not necessarily the best ball, yeah, that’s a drop,” Cooper agreed.
The Cowboys have a more nuanced way of viewing things. They chart how a receiver uses his hands in catching the ball. Did he catch the ball at its tip? Did the receiver use both hands? Did the receiver use his body to shield the defender in catching the ball? Did the receiver take a pass away from a defender?
“It is complicated, so in different phases of the year, a drop is different things,” Cowboys wide receivers coach Sanjay Lal said. “We just went through phase two (of offseason program) which is no defense, so a drop there is a bobble, and you catch it. You don’t catch the front half of the ball; you catch the meat of it or the back half of it. You don’t go ice the tuck, so the catch is not complete until I see it into my elbow versus no defense. You don’t do all those three, that’s a drop. In real life, a drop is a drop. If you don’t catch it, it’s a drop.”
According to Matt Femrite, senior research analyst for Sport Radar, a drop is a subjective stat.
“It’s defined as a receiver being credited with a drop if the receiver would reasonably be expected to catch the ball,” Femrite said. “Also, players are not credited with drops if there is a pass defended or deflected on the play.”
The Cowboys keep track of contested catches because that’s another value for a receiver given how difficult defenses are with press coverages and throws coming out faster due to pass rushers on the quarterback.
“The contested catches those are the big ones,” Lal said. “Did you secure the contested catch? Did you let it into your body and then it got knocked out? That’s a drop. A contested catch where you went for it, he got his hand in it, at the same time (the receiver) did everything right, That’s not really a drop.”
In all its simplicity, a dropped pass is when the ball touches your hands and falls to the ground. For Cooper, and any other wide receiver, that’s all that really matters.
“Every time. Technically speaking, if the ball touches your hands and you don’t catch it, then it’s a drop,” Cooper said. “I always say the job of the receiver is to make the quarterback look good and vice versa. If the quarterback isn’t accurate on a particular pass, you should still catch it if it hits your hands to make him look good. That’s how I’ve always thought about it.”
By Calvin Watkins Jul 5, 2019
If there are any concerns about giving Cowboys wide receiver Amari Cooper a large contract, they hinge on the consistency of his hands.
An act Cooper has performed his entire football life, from youth ball in Miami to the NFL has eluded him at times during his career.
Cooper led the NFL with 18 drops in 2015. Heading into the 2018 season, he had the fourth-worst drop rate among NFL receivers at 13.62 percent. Last season, between Oakland and Dallas, Cooper dropped six passes, tied for 18th-most in the NFL. The Cowboys don’t seem concerned with Cooper’s occasional drops and don’t regard them as a long-term problem.
When Cooper was in Oakland, however, the issue raised the ire of many fans, especially after his 18-drop rookie campaign. He followed up that season with 10 combined drops between 2016 and 2017, but some fans had already made a connection.
Cooper is considered one of the top receivers in the NFL and enters a contract year seeking one of the largest wide receiver deals in league history.
Drops are a natural coefficient of competition. Mistakes happen in the NFL. The more you throw at a wide receiver, the likelier he is to accrue drops.
If anything, Cooper has said he doesn’t need many targets to become an impactful player.
“I’ve never heard a receiver say that,” former Cowboys wide receiver and Hall of Famer Michael Irvin said. “’I don’t need 15-16 targets a game, just give me my eight or nine, and I’ll catch seven or eight passes.’ It tells you he’s efficient. He’s efficient, and that’s a great thing.”
Cooper’s career catch rate of 59.8 percent is low compared to other elite players. He does have 278 career catches since entering the league in 2015, but during that time, former Cowboys receiver Cole Beasley caught 228 passes with a catch rate of 70.6 percent. Antonio Brown has 447 catches with a catch rate of 65.9 percent. Julio Jones, seeking his own long-term contract extension, has 420 receptions with a catch rate of 64.6 percent.
Randall Cobb, whom the Cowboys signed in free agency to replace Beasley, has 243 receptions since 2015 with a catch rate of 66.4 percent.
It’s easy to say slot receivers such as Beasley and Cobb should have higher catch rates with the shorter routes they take. But Brown’s and Jones’ efficiency diminishes the notion that outside receivers, who run deeper routes, can’t have high catch rates.
Drops are not as simple to track as they seem. Just as sacks can be attributed to multiple linemen — or the quarterback — drops can be a product of a poor throw, a deflection, a lack of concentration or any number of other things. Wide receivers, however, seem to view them more concretely.
“Whenever that ball touches your hand and the next thing it touches is the ground,” Irvin said of what he views as a dropped pass. “It matters if its a bad (throw) if you can’t touch it. But whenever that ball touches your hand, that’s it, that’s what constitutes a drop. That’s the only way you can make it what it is. I know this league measures it in different ways, but the purist, that’s how they look at it.”
“If it hits your hand but it’s not necessarily the best ball, yeah, that’s a drop,” Cooper agreed.
The Cowboys have a more nuanced way of viewing things. They chart how a receiver uses his hands in catching the ball. Did he catch the ball at its tip? Did the receiver use both hands? Did the receiver use his body to shield the defender in catching the ball? Did the receiver take a pass away from a defender?
“It is complicated, so in different phases of the year, a drop is different things,” Cowboys wide receivers coach Sanjay Lal said. “We just went through phase two (of offseason program) which is no defense, so a drop there is a bobble, and you catch it. You don’t catch the front half of the ball; you catch the meat of it or the back half of it. You don’t go ice the tuck, so the catch is not complete until I see it into my elbow versus no defense. You don’t do all those three, that’s a drop. In real life, a drop is a drop. If you don’t catch it, it’s a drop.”
According to Matt Femrite, senior research analyst for Sport Radar, a drop is a subjective stat.
“It’s defined as a receiver being credited with a drop if the receiver would reasonably be expected to catch the ball,” Femrite said. “Also, players are not credited with drops if there is a pass defended or deflected on the play.”
The Cowboys keep track of contested catches because that’s another value for a receiver given how difficult defenses are with press coverages and throws coming out faster due to pass rushers on the quarterback.
“The contested catches those are the big ones,” Lal said. “Did you secure the contested catch? Did you let it into your body and then it got knocked out? That’s a drop. A contested catch where you went for it, he got his hand in it, at the same time (the receiver) did everything right, That’s not really a drop.”
In all its simplicity, a dropped pass is when the ball touches your hands and falls to the ground. For Cooper, and any other wide receiver, that’s all that really matters.
“Every time. Technically speaking, if the ball touches your hands and you don’t catch it, then it’s a drop,” Cooper said. “I always say the job of the receiver is to make the quarterback look good and vice versa. If the quarterback isn’t accurate on a particular pass, you should still catch it if it hits your hands to make him look good. That’s how I’ve always thought about it.”
