In his Buffalo Bills debut, receiver Amari Cooper shines

ORCHARD PARK, N.Y. — Wide receiver Amari Cooper, the newest Buffalo Bill, had some impressive plays during the Bills’ 34-10 win against the Tennessee Titans at Highmark Stadium on Sunday.

Cooper grabbed four catches on five targets for 66 yards, all in the second half, but his biggest highlight was his first. Cooper’s introductory catch as a Bill was a 12-yard pass from quarterback Josh Allen into the endzone to give the Bills their first lead of the game. So despite being created on Tuesday night, the Cooper-Allen connection seems to be off to a great start.

“He’s really impressive, a great player,” Cooper said of Allen. “Had the opportunity to watch him obviously through the television, for quite some time now. He’s had his, I believe, his 100th start today seems like he had 100 amazing performances. So, I guess this was no different. He went out there, he did his thing like he usually does. But he’s a phenomenal player, for sure.”

Allen said he’s impressed with Cooper as well.

“Guys of his caliber, they don’t they don’t need a lot,” Allen said. “They go out there, get him a clear mind, let him go play. That’s what he did out there a couple times. Just finding zones, finding windows. He made a really good catch on that slant. But again, just, the professionalism that he has, the ability that he has, just trust what I see with him.”

Prior to the ball being snapped on the touchdown throw play, Cooper looked over to rookie wide receiver Keon Coleman. When asked, the two downplayed the moment.

“He knew the plays, I just helped him confirm it,” Coleman said. “That’s the name of the game. You never can get fined for overcommunicating, everybody do what they need to do.”

Though Cooper did give credit to the rookie wideout on his career day.

“A lot of guys stepped up and made plays at the wide receiver position,” Cooper said.  “Congratulations to the young buck Keon for his first 100-yard game.”

Cooper did, however, praise the importance of the communication this week, knowing he’d have limited reps with Allen prior to the game. On one 2^nd & 8 play in the fourth quarter, Allen found his wideout on a slant, but the ball was thrown behind Cooper. The five-time Pro Bowler still made the play and said he and Allen discussed how to run that route prior to the game.

“Communication rules the nation, try to kind of talk to them about that route throughout the week and how I run it because I do run slant routes a little bit differently sometimes,” Cooper said. “I can run it in a multitude of ways, but I had to warn them about that way because it’s an atypical way to run a route. So, we talked about it, but, he kind of had a guy in his face. I don’t think he really knew where I’d be because we didn’t really get a rep at it, we just talked about it. So I think moving forward, you know, it’ll be better.”

Cooper’s day started off rough, however, dropping the first pass of the game, on a target that would have given the Bills a first down had he caught it.

Cooper said he found out he’d be playing on Sunday as soon as he heard from the Bills after being traded. News10NBC captured this video of Cooper walking out of the tunnel at Highmark Stadium: