Cleveland Browns wide receiver Amari Cooper missed the last two games of the regular season due to a heel injury, but he will be on the field when the Browns battle the Houston Texans in the Wild Card Round of the playoffs this Saturday.
Cooper said that the only reason he did not play in the regular-season finale was because the game was meaningless and that if anything was on the line in Week 18, he would have participated.
The star wide out did not practice on Tuesday or Wednesday, but he is assuring everyone that he is progressing just fine.
“It’s getting better every day,” Cooper said, via the Browns’ official YouTube account. “I’m running around now. So it’s just a typical injury that you have to work through.”
Cooper set a career high with 1,250 receiving yards this season to go along with 72 receptions and five touchdowns en route to a Pro Bowl selection.
The 29-year-old burned the Texans just a few weeks ago, as he logged 11 catches for 265 yards and a couple of scores in the Browns’ 36-22 win over Houston on Christmas Eve.
Cooper, who played his collegiate football at the University of Alabama, was originally selected by the Oakland Raiders with the fourth overall pick of the 2015 NFL Draft.
He spent the first three-and-a-half seasons of his career with the Raiders, making a couple of Pro Bowl appearances. He was then traded to the Dallas Cowboys midway through the 2018 campaign, where he proceeded to spend three-and-a-half years with the Cowboys. The pass-catcher went out to earn a couple of more trips to the Pro Bowl before being dealt to Cleveland in March 2022.
Amari Cooper and the Browns went 11-6 this season and are making just their second playoff appearance since 2003.
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