Things won’t get any easier in Week Two for Pittsburgh Steelers veteran cornerback Patrick Peterson.
After struggling in coverage against San Francisco’s Brandon Aiyuk, allowing two touchdowns, Peterson and the Steelers now have to deal with Cleveland wide receiver Amari Cooper, who remains one of the better route runners in football.
Aiyuk, who entered the Week One matchup as a blossoming route runner who creates a ton of separation and is elite against man and press coverage, according to Reception Perception, torched the Steelers, hauling in eight receptions for 129 yards and two touchdowns. Pittsburgh had no answers for him. They better hope to have answers for Cooper, who is an even better route runner and is coming off his best season as a route runner.
Peterson knows what’s ahead. Speaking with reporters Wednesday from inside the Steelers’ locker room at the UPMC Rooney Sports Complex on the South Side, the veteran cornerback spoke highly of the “savvy veteran” and said that he’s going to be a big challenge for the Steelers’ secondary based on the way he sets up routes, especially in the red zone.
“Amari Cooper is a savvy vet. He’s been in the game a very long time, bounced around with a couple of teams. Probably, man, when he first got into the league was one of the better route runners that I’ve had the opportunity to go up against when he was in Oakland, at the time, and when he was in Dallas,” Peterson said, according to video via Steelers.com. “Amari is still one of those savvy vets that knows how to get open, that knows how to manipulate defensive back leverages.
“A red zone target; he does a great job of setting routes up. Those jerk routes, those whip routes, those double moves in the red zone to get that little bit of space. …Amari Cooper still has top-end speed, and he still can catch the football very well.”
Though there are questions regarding quarterback play in Cleveland with Deshaun Watson, there are no questions or concerns about Cooper at this point in his career. Since he entered the league with the then-Oakland Raiders, Cooper has been one of the top-flight route runners in the league, period.
As Peterson stated in his session with the media, Cooper does a good job of setting up routes throughout games. He runs every route with a purpose and is going to test cornerbacks on every single snap, even if he isn’t the target on the route concept. He’s doing a lot of learning in real time and figuring out tendencies and how corners attack certain routes, which allows him to set things up for later in the game.
In his ninth NFL season at just 29 years old, Cooper remains arguably one of the best route runners in the league. According to Next Gen Stats after Week One, a week in which the Browns defeated the Cincinnati Bengals 24-3, Cooper generated four yards of separation per route run and averaged an impressive 16.3 air yards per target, numbers that both fall inside the top 10 at the position after one week.
That enhances the belief that Cooper is a top-flight route runner.
After stating last week that the 49ers had a lot of tells and then following up on Monday adding that he’s expecting more “wiggle and variety” in routes from the Browns after San Francisco ran a lot of in-breaking routes, Peterson has a big test on his plate — again — against Cooper.
Last season in two matchups with the Steelers, Cooper caught nine passes for 152 yards and a touchdown. That stat line includes a seven-reception, 101-yard performance in the Week Three Thursday Night Football matchup. In his career, Cooper has played the Steelers four times and has 21 receptions for 307 yards and two touchdowns in those matchups on 33 targets.
Big test coming for the Steelers’ secondary after a disastrous first week.
