FanPost

Jonathan Cooper?

I, like many of us, was excited to see Jonathan Cooper get a chance to start a game. We have all been waiting for him to justify his draft status and I was certain that as soon as the Rams game ended there would be copious discussions about his performance and future with the team. Alas, I haven't seen a peep. So I took the time to re-watch the game and exclusively examine his performance so I could at least start the discussion. Be warned, I have no experience analyzing film so take what I say with appropriate skepticism. I am mainly posting just to get all of your thoughts on his performance.

From what I saw I was encouraged. I don't think he was great, but in my opinion he was good. He wasn't dominating people at the line of scrimmage, but he wasn't getting beat either. In pass protection, when the game started it looked like he wasn't using his hands very well and people were getting close to beating him. When that happened, he seemed to use his physicality to keep his man from making a play. However he was helped by Stanton making quick throws and it looked like if the play was a longer developing route there could have been problems,at least in the 1st quarter. As the game progressed he got more consistent and kept his man in front of him. It was a great pass protection day for the Cardinals and Cooper did his part to make that happen.

When Cooper was drafted I remember hearing that due to his athleticism he was great at pulling in run plays. He flashed that in the preseason last year but he wasn't used that way in this game. I saw him pull on a run play one time against the Rams. He did a great job and sealed his man to let the RB run right behind him for a nice gain, but he certainly wasn't featured in the run game. As I said, he wasn't blowing people off the ball, but he was solid and never got beat handily for a loss. There were only two times I saw his man get their hands on the runner, and both plays went for gains.

I saw Cooper improve as the game went on but I would love to see comments from all of you on how he did and what we may expect from the future. Did he do enough to earn the starting job? Do you think he played well and contributed to the solid running game against the Rams? Were you encouraged or weren't impressed?

<em>This is a FanPost and does not necessarily reflect the views of Revenge of the Birds' (ROTB) editors. It does reflect the views of this particular fan though, which is as important as the views of ROTB's editors.</em>