How Amari Cooper is impacting the Cowboys offense and why it’s only going to get better

Newly-acquired receiver Amari Cooper has 11 catches for 123 yards and a touchdown in two games with the Dallas Cowboys, including six for 75 in last Sunday’s season-saving 27-20 victory against the Philadelphia Eagles.

Don’t let the seemingly modest numbers fool you.

Go by what you see.

And it’s easy to see that Cooper has already made a dramatic impact on the Cowboys offense and passing game.

While he has yet to provide the game-breaking element, which was the basis the team’s decision to give up a first-round pick to acquire his services from the Oakland Raiders during the bye, he has proven to be a chain mover.

Ten of his 11 catches have resulted in first downs. Those numbers are already good enough for second on the team behind Cole Beasley.

Most importantly, a Cowboys offense that was converting just 31.8 percent of third down through the first two games has converted 48.1 the past games.

The Cowboys were eight of 16 on third down against the Eagles, including a perfect four for four on game-deciding 75-yard touchdown drives in the fourth quarter.

“When you add a guy like that who can win one-on-one, doing different things, winning short, winning down the field, winning across the field, intermediate routes it certainly helps you,” coach Jason Garrett said of Cooper’s third-down impact. “It gathers a little bit more attention from the defense and it opens up opportunities for other guys and it benefits you as well.

“He’s played a lot of football in a short period of time for us. I think the biggest thing is his focus, his commitment, our coaching staff’s focus to get him ready to go. And he’s come in and he’s played a lot of different spots for us, done a lot of different things. I think that’s helped our passing game. It’s opened up opportunities for our entire offense.”

It has helped quarterback Dak Prescott the most.

Prescott has completed his highest percentage of passes over the last two weeks against the Tennessee Titans and Eagles, completing 67.7 and 72.2, respectively. He previous season high was a 65.5 rate in the season opener against the Carolina Panthers more than none weeks ago.

“I mean, as I said before, he’s a great receiver,” said Prescott, who had a season-high 26 completions on a season-high 36 attempts for 270 yards and a touchdown against the Eagles. “And when you bring in a great receiver like that who runs the routes like he does and gets separation, I told you I didn’t think it was going to be a hard transition to get on the same page with him.

“As you saw, we missed a couple of deep balls tonight but that’s something we’re still going to fine-tune and get right. It’s something we had a conversation with immediately in the locker room about how we’re going to get it done. But once we get that, it will be tough.”

It’s the route running and separation that stands out for Garrett as well. Watching him play, you can see why the Raiders made him the fourth-overall pick in 2015 draft and why he had over 1,000 yards receiving and back to back Pro Bowl bids his first two years in the league.

The talent is evident.

“I think he releases well,” Garrett said. “He’s got very good quickness, body control, very good understanding of how to release against press coverage. A disciplined route runner when they play off, in terms of understanding the depths he needs, the angles he needs, how to beat a guy, how to get himself open in a zone.

“I think he’s got a very good feel for how to run routes in man-to-man coverage. He’s got quickness and burst, that’s line one, he gets people off of him. He also has body control, the ability to change direction, put his foot in the ground and go the other way and again, establish the angles coming to the quarterback.

“Does a very good job of competing at the ball and I think he’s demonstrated each of those things over the last couple of weeks.”

And it will only get better from the Cowboys perspective because Prescott and Cooper have yet to connect on the deep ball as the quarterback alluded to earlier.

Cooper says it’s only a matter of time.

“I expected to come in here to make plays and help this team win, definitely,” Cooper said. “Obviously, they expected for me to do the same, being that they traded for me. Obviously, we have some things to work on, me and Dak and we talked about it. But, we’re creating that chemistry and we’re going to get better.”

This story was originally published November 13, 2018 at 8:22 AM.