Sauce Gardner dishes on who he thinks is NFL’s most underrated WR
New York Jets cornerback Sauce Gardner is one of the best in the NFL at shutting down the opposing team’s top receivers.
So if anyone is qualified to give an opinion about who the most underrated receiver in the league is, it’s him. During a recent Q&A with CBS Sports, Gardner shared that it blew his mind that many of the “best of” or “top players” lists that he’s seen didn’t include Cleveland Browns receiver Amari Cooper.
“I know a lot of people used to talk about him, but I'd say Amari Cooper,” Gardner said of who he thought was the most undervalued WR in the NFL. “I don't know how people keep coming up with these receiver lists (and) he's not making the lists. Like, I haven't really seen him on these lists, and I'm like, ‘Yo, he really like that.’ He's a route technician, great hands, great everything. He probably don't care, but I can't even call it underrated, he's just not making these lists and I don't understand why.”
Gardner played Cooper just once during his Defensive Rookie of the Year season in 2022 with Cooper getting the better of the matchup; he caught all four of his targets for 33 yards and a touchdown with Gardner covering him, per Pro Football Focus.
Since his rookie year in 2015, Cooper has the seventh-most touchdown receptions (55), the eighth-most receiving yards (8,236) and targets (950) and the 10th-most receptions (595), according to StatMuse.
The 28-year-old Cooper is a four-time Pro Bowler, who’s one of just four players with six or more 1,000-yard receiving seasons and one of five WRs with at least 7,000 receiving yards and 45 receiving touchdowns since 2015.
He was also just the third player in NFL history to reach 1,000 yards receiving with at least 70 receptions in each of his first two seasons, and he not only led all rookies in receptions (77) and receiving yards (1,070) in 2015, but he also set Raiders rookie record in both categories.
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