Pharoh Cooper

Pharoh Cooper gives the Rams several happy (punt) returns

RICH HAMMOND

link: http://www.ocregister.com/2017/12/17/pharoh-cooper-gives-the-rams-several-happy-punt-returns/

SEATTLE — Pharoh Cooper started this season without a defined role. Now he’s a hero.

The Rams’ second-year receiver is an afterthought on an offense filled with playmakers, but three times in the first half Sunday, Cooper put that offense in favorable field position with his great punt-return skills.

In the first quarter, Cooper returned a punt 53 yards to the Seattle 1-yard line, and the Rams scored on the next play for a 13-0 lead. In the second quarter, Cooper had two returns of 26 yards, which put the ball on the Seattle 36 and 47, respectively. The Rams scored two more touchdowns.

Cooper finished with 128 punt-return yards and also had 52 yards on kickoff returns.

“We kept getting the ball around the 50,” quarterback Jared Goff said, “and it felt pretty good.”

Cooper isn’t exactly a secret. This week, the NFL announced that, during fan Pro Bowl voting, Cooper got the most votes among NFC return specialists. A trip to Orlando for that all-star game seems likely, yet for some reason, the Seahawks and punter Jon Ryan kept punting the ball to him.

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“Yeah, I ain’t going to lie. I was kind of surprised,” Cooper said. “He kept booting them far, and that just gave us opportunities to make more plays.”
There was some symmetry in Cooper’s success. The last time the Rams played the Seahawks, in October at the Coliseum, Tavon Austin fumbled two punts. A few days later, Coach Sean McVay announced that Austin would get a “break” from returns, and gave the job to Cooper.

That break isn’t going to end, thanks to Cooper. A fourth-round draft pick out of South Carolina in 2016, Cooper has only nine catches this season. He’s listed at 5-foot-11 and isn’t the fastest guy on the team, but on returns, he has showed just the right amount of patience, followed by excellent vision.

“Really it’s just the trust and confidence in my blockers. They spring me, free me a lot of the time,” Cooper said. “The confidence they give me back there as a punt returner is everything. I know they are going to block their guys until the whistle and that gives me more confidence to make another move.”