Joe Flacco leisurely stood in the pocket, unbothered by any semblance of a pass rush and owning the advantage of a gifted wide receiver as he proceeded to start a personal game of catch with Amari Cooper.
The first play from scrimmage signaled what kind of dominant performance the Cleveland Browns quarterback and top receiver were going to enjoy at the expense of the Texans’ overmatched defense.
Flacco launched a bomb high into the air and Cooper hauled in a 53-yard catch in the first quarter behind safety Jimmie Ward.
Regardless of whether he was lined across from one man or double coverage, Cooper exploited the Texans’ weaknesses and finished with a franchise-record 265 receiving yards on 11 receptions with two touchdowns and a two-point conversion reception on 15 targets. Cooper also tied the Texans’ single-game opponent record for passing yards against them, matching former Buffalo Bills wide receiver Lee Evans’ performance in 2006.
“Not to disrespect their defensive backs, but it seemed like everything was flowing well and it kind of seemed a little bit easier,” Cooper said. “To be completely candid, I would attribute most of it to Joe, He has an incredible feel for the game. He has an incredible arm. The best way of explaining it is that we mesh well together.”
Cooper was a major reason why the Texans fell to 8-7 with an embarrassing 36-22 loss Sunday at NRG Stadium. And Flacco passed for 368 yards, three touchdowns and two interceptions.
“Oh, man, he’s special,” said Flacco, a former Super Bowl MVP with the Baltimore Ravens. “I mean, you know, we were able to get him open downfield a little bit but he was able to come up for some balls and be strong to the catch and all that stuff. He’s a special player.”
Should the Texans have deployed standout cornerback Derek Stingley Jr., a Pro Bowl candidate who leads the team with five interceptions, to follow Cooper around every play?
“No, that’s not what we do,” Texans coach DeMeco Ryans said after his defense yielded 26 first downs, 418 yards of total offense and 4 of 6 fourth-down conversions. “When we talk about following guys, it’s not a matter of following him, it was a matter of guys playing their coverage well. We’ve got a guy double-teamed, and he still catches the ball. That’s the problem. We’ve got to play ball better.”
Stingley said it’s up to the coaches where he lines up and not for him to make that kind of suggestion
“Coach’s decision,” he said. “Anything he wants, we’re going to do what he wants to do.”
The Browns averaged 8.1 yards per pass. And Cooper averaged an incredible 24.1 yards per reception.
“Whether it’s technique of a play call or not playing the play call right or eyes or anything that go wrong within a play, you have to hold that to a minimum,” Stingley said.
Cooper was eight yards shy of tying retired Texans wide receiver and Hall of Fame candidate Andre Johnson’s 273 yards that’s the all-time record for any receiver in the history of NRG Stadium.
Cooper said he exploited the Texans’ Cover 3 and Cover 4 schemes. His first big play was off a play-action pass from Flacco.
“Obviously, as a receiver, you always want to make big plays early, you want to touch the ball as soon as you can,” Cooper said. “When we saw the game plan, I knew I had a chance to get that ball based on the coverages that they play and it kind of worked out the way I expected it to.”
At 6-foot-1, 225 pounds, Cooper had a huge size advantage against Texans reserve cornerback D’Angelo Ross, a 5-foot-9, 190-pound former practice squad player who primarily plays on special teams. Cooper got a step behind him on a 75-yard touchdown catch in the second quarter.
“I just remind him like, ‘Yo, sometimes you can just throw it up,’” Cooper said. “These guys are small compared to me, I can just use my body to shield them off and go up and make the play.”
Cooper wanted to hit the 300-yard milestone that hasn’t been reached since Julio Jones in 2016.
“Why not? Cooper said. “Honestly, the way I look at it from an individual perspective, I always go into the game trying to get 100 yards first. Once I eclipse that, I’m like ‘OK, 200.’ It kind of keeps me motivated throughout the course of the game.”
Cooper went over 1,000 receiving yards as he broke Josh Gordon’s franchise record of 261 receiving yards. He has now topped 200 receiving yards with three different teams, including the Browns, Raiders and Dallas Cowboys. That ties him with Terrell Owens.
“He’s one of the best I’ve ever been around,” Browns coach Kevin Stefanski said. “What he knows about this game, the way he sees this game, he’s like a savant out there. Combine that with the route-running ability, and he’s one of this team’s leaders. These guys love Amari and to see him come through was awesome. He was pretty special. Yeah, he’s a good one.”
The Texans had game-planned specifically to limit explosive plays. The plan didn’t work at all.
“Just anytime your team goes out and performs like that to start, it just wasn’t good enough,” Ryans said. “You try to figure out why it wasn’t good enough. Felt like we had a good week of preparation. We were on. We knew what we had to do to win the game, and that was eliminate the explosive passes and to come out.
“And, for the first play, for that to happen, it’s not good enough. That’s the way this offense, the team got going is because we gave up the explosive plays knowing going into the game that’s where they thrive – throwing the deep passes. We didn’t do a great job of covering it at all today.”
Losing top defensive end Jonathan Greenard to a sprained ankle hurt the Texans’ defense. So did Flacco never being sacked.
It was a rough day all-around for the Texans defense as they played without Greenard and three other injured starters; Ward, Will Anderson Jr. and Blake Cashman.
“When you don’t get pressure on the quarterback, no matter who is out there, it’s going to be a long day,” Ryans said. “For Flacco, he had a really good day versus us. We didn’t pressure him at all. He stood back in the pocket. He had all day to throw the football. And, we weren’t where we were supposed to be in coverage.”
Aaron Wilson is a contributor to Sport Talk 790