After the New England Patriots’ 13-9 win over the Dallas Cowboys, cornerback Stephon Gilmore repeated what he said all week: Amari Cooper is one of the best receivers in the league.
Maybe that’s true, with Cooper entering Week 12 in the top six in receiving yards (886) and receiving touchdowns (7). But with Gilmore draped all over Cooper for 60 minutes on Sunday, one of the best receivers in the NFL finished with zero receptions on two targets. Gilmore’s nickname is Gilly Lock. Indeed, Cooper was on-lock for the entire night. And that’s relatively remarkable in today’s NFL, with rules that favor quarterbacks and receivers more than ever.
“Then I guess I broke that,” he said. “I guess we broke it.”
Gilmore was quick to credit his teammates and coaches — that’s the “we” he’s referring to. They were excellent, too, whether it was cornerback J.C. Jackson, who made solid work of Michael Gallup (5 catches, 55 yards) or Jonathan Jones, whose only blemish was allowing a 59-yard catch from Randall Cobb. It was a product of a rub route, a good design by the Cowboys’ coaching staff. It was also a product of the Patriots’ scheme, which is bringing the safeties close to the line of scrimmage rather than putting them deep. That puts more pressure than ever on their cornerbacks. And yet that doesn’t seem to faze Gilmore. No safety? No problem.
Considering the Cowboys were the top passing attack in the NFL entering the game, the Patriots should feel good about holding Dak Prescott to a 57 completion percentage, 212 yards and an interception. The interception, by the way, was Gilmore’s. That’s surprising because Gilmore faced just two targets. Somehow, Gilmore finished the game with more catches than Cooper.
Was Gilmore confident he could shut down Cooper?
“Yeah,” he said.
Why?
“I believe in myself. He’s good. He’s a good player,” Gilmore said.
Gilmore was happy to see Cooper lining up in the same spot in the Cowboys’ formations for the entire game. That limited the routes Cooper could run, which helped Gilmore anticipate which route he needed to stop on any given play. But he kept in mind all of the film study he’d done — he found Cooper’s route-running particularly deceptive, with two totally different routes looking the same, until they weren’t.
“He wasn’t tough (to study),” Gilmore said. “He’s just — every receiver has their thing that they do well. … They lined him up in the same spot mostly every time, and I kind of anticipated it and tried to play tight coverage.”
Gilmore’s performance was enough to draw high praise from his head coach during a postgame press conference.
“Another great effort by Steph,” Bill Belichick said Sunday night. “He just works and prepares so hard for his matchups every week. He takes it as such a personal challenge. This is a really good group of receivers and a great quarterback and a great offensive line. Steph’s as professional as they come. He knows his opponents inside out, and his matchups and the overall scheme and how to best play based on what our call is and what the situation is.”
Perhaps fitting with Belichick’s comments, Gilmore stood just a few feet away from his iPad while he spoke to reporters in the locker room after the game. He never seems to let that thing get far — he never seems to stop studying his opponent. And it’s likely that after the game, he was either studying his tape from Sunday or getting a jump on his next assignment: DeAndre Hopkins. He, too, is one of the best receivers in the league.
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