CLEVELAND, Ohio — Amari Cooper, a 10th-year pro, had a strong message for his teammates after the Browns were upset 21-15 by the Giants on Sunday to fall to 1-2.
“You could blame a lot of things,” he said. “Honestly, at the end of the day, like (Kevin) Stefanski said at halftime, the plays don’t matter. We’ve just got to go out there and want it more. We’ve got to give that team their credit, they were hungry, they were desperate for a win and they came out and outplayed us. So that’s what I would attribute it to.”
He’d get no argument on that from tight end Jordan Akins.
“They definitely come out smoking, man,” Akins said on a video conference on Monday.
But while the offense struggled, Cooper wasted no time in busting out of his two-game slump. He caught a 24-yard TD pass on the first play of the game, just 11 seconds in, after the Browns forced and recovered the opening kickoff.
“The first play of the game got shown to me, I think it was Friday, and just tried to go out there and get an explosive from the jump, and that’s what we were able to do,” he said.
So that was the play even without the turnover?
“Yeah. Yeah. Yeah,” he said.
But Cooper, who had caught only 5 of 17 targets for 27 yards in the first two games, didn’t let up. By the end of the game, he caught 7 of 12 targets for 86 yards and two TDs.
“During the week I said I needed to treat the practice like the game, just more intentional,” he said. “Not saying that I got complacent or anything like that, but I just was more intentional. I hate not playing great football because I know I can play great football every single week. So that was just my focus.”
With 11:33 left in the game, Cooper caught a 6-yard TD pass on the left side of the end zone, and Jerry Jeudy caught the two-point conversion to pull the Browns to within 21-15 and breathe new life into the fans. But they failed to punch it on their three straight fourth-quarter tries after the defense kept giving them the ball back. Jerome Ford fumbled a handoff, Watson was sacked on fourth down for no yards with Akins apparently open on the right side, and Cedric Tillman dropped a fourth-down pass over the middle at the Giants’ 45 that slipped right through his hands.
Tillman was in on that play because Cooper got a little dinged on the previous play, an overthrow down the deep left side.
“Just awkward landing,” he said. “Just stayed down a little bit, get myself together. A couple seconds. I’m good.”
Tillman agonized over the drop on the bench, head in hands and punching the air. Cooper was quick to console him.
“As a vet, I’ve been in that situation obviously,” he said. “I just told him, never let them see you sweat. Those things happen. It’s football. At the end of the day, those guys on the other side of the ball get paid, too. Anytime you’re in a situation like that, you just want to be able to learn from it the best way that you could.”
Of course, he would’ve loved to have done more to help pull out the victory, but he admired Watson’s determination to strap the team on his back and help carry it to victory. By the fourth quarter, he had been sacked a career-high eight times and hit 17. He lost several offensive linemen to injuries and had a makeshift wall of protection.
“That’s who he is,” Cooper said. “He’s a fighter. That’s why the Browns were so interested in him to begin with. With all the turmoil that we had on offense, we still had an opportunity to go out there and win. So I gave him a lot of credit for that. I was talking to him a little bit after the game. Just need to clean up a little bit of things. I think we kind of found a little bit of a rhythm at times in the game, so I guess that’s the silver lining, but we definitely have some things to build on.”
One of the those things was the return of the chemistry between Watson and Cooper, who practiced at a game-like intensity all week. When David Njoku (ankle) returns soon, Watson will have his top two targets reunited.
“Obviously there’s some plays I wish I could have back,” Cooper said. “But it was a good starting point for me, I believe.”
Watson couldn’t agree more.
