Things can change so quickly in the NFL. One minute, a player is expected to miss the game with an injury, the next they’re off the injury report and ready to go.
That might be the case with Cleveland Browns wide receiver Amari Cooper on Monday Night Football against the Pittsburgh Steelers at Acrisure Stadium, at least according to ESPN Monday Night Football announcer Joe Buck.
Appearing on The Pat McAfee Show Monday afternoon, Buck stated that Browns head coach Kevin Stefanski told him and MNF analyst Troy Aikman that the team believes Cooper is going to play Monday night.
“…They think he will play tonight,” Buck said to McAfee, which raised some eyebrows.
McAfee pushed back, citing the report from Sunday by ESPN’s Adam Schefter, which stated that it was unlikely Cooper would play Monday night.
“I read that tweet; I’m just telling you what Kevin Stefanski told us,” Buck said. “I don’t know; I don’t know. I’m just telling you. Maybe Stefanski didn’t read Schefty’s Tweet.”
That would be quite the development if Cooper goes from being “unlikely” to play on Sunday, to in the lineup 48 hours after injuring his groin in practice on Saturday.
For what it’s worth, Cooper was listed as questionable on the final injury report of the week on Saturday and has not been ruled out, though Schefter’s initial report sounded like the Browns would be cautious with their top receiver so early in the season.
We’ll see what the official injury report and actives/inactives looks like ahead of the Monday Night Football matchup between the two AFC North teams when it drops ahead of the game. But from the sounds of it from Buck, there’s a real belief coming from the Browns that Cooper is a go for the Monday night matchup.
