In Only Two Full Games, Jets WR Omar Cooper Jr. is The ONLY NFL Rookie to Win Rookie of The Week Twice
I'm not one to give gambling advice. That would be insane. The best bet I ever hit was this year when I accidentally bet $1000 on the Arizona Cardinals to have EXACTLY 1 win after 5 weeks. I was an idiot and thought I was getting a great price on the Cardinals having 1 OR MORE wins. Then the Cardinals beat the Chargers in Week 1, and I had to sweat out 4 more games. The bet ended up hitting, but again... it was legitimately a lucky mistake.
However, I think Jets wide receiver Omar Cooper Jr. is the best rookie in the NFL right now, and he's +1000 to win Offensive Rookie of the Year. The problem is he's missed 4 games. Not since Odell Beckham Jr. in 2014 has a rookie missed that much time and still won Offensive Rookie of the Year. And the finish Odell Beckham had to that season was absurd.
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Damn. Sometimes I forget how fucking good that guy was at football. It didn't last long, but at his peak, he was incredible.
If you're a big "on pace" guy, Omar Cooper Jr. is on pace to nearly match Odell Beckham Jr.'s rookie-season yardage total. Obviously that's a ridiculous thing to say after only two games of production. And yes, I'm just now realizing how the names Odell Beckham Jr. and Omar Cooper Jr. are incredibly similar. Which only makes me higher on the guy. Anyways, let's take a look at Omar Cooper Jr.'s short season up to this point.
He played in the first game of the season, and 3 minutes into the first quarter, he did this.
Looked pretty familiar to Indiana fans. Turns out NFL secondaries don't want to tackle him either. That was the 1:00 PM EST game. By 1:30 PM EST, Omar Cooper Jr. was hurt. Placed on injured reserve with an ankle sprain.
He sat out 4 games before making his return in Week 6 vs. the New England Patriots. He had 6 catches (on 7 targets) for 103 yards and 1 TD. It was good enough for Rookie of the Week.
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The next week (i.e. this past weekend) vs. the Dolphins, it was more of the same. He won Rookie of the Week. Again.
Not too shabby. The production-to-time-on-field ratio is as good as it gets. He's an awesome player, and there was an argument to be made last season that he was Indiana's third most important receiver. This is a conversation for another day (but I'll give the short version now), Indiana's National Championship team got so much credit for their coaching. Then, when they started dominating teams in the playoffs, people decided it was because they were older than everyone else. At one point, people even threw out accusations of cheating. But I think we might look back on that team in a few years and realize that they just had a shit load of NFL talent. Way better NFL talent than most people realized in the moment.
For example:
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Michael Owens. Getty Images.There's a ton of season left, but as of now, the Offensive Rookie of the Year race is wide open. Unless Fernando Mendoza gets the nod very soon, and comes out firing, there are no QB's threatening to take it. Aside from Jeremiyah Love, the only players with better odds than Omar Cooper are fellow wide receivers. And they don't lead him by much when it comes to yards. I don't love the fact that Omar Cooper plays with Geno Smith and the Jets, but most of his competition isn't working with much better.
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And that's a blog about Omar Cooper Jr. For the last two weeks, he's been the best rookie in the NFL. If he can stay healthy, and Geno Smith can at least keep the Jets scoring some points… he might end up being the best rookie of the year. But don't take my advice. I'm very dumb. And as an Indiana fan, I'm incredibly biased.
