Jerricho Cotchery best WR with two minutes remaining in game
Jimmy Smith (22) knocks the ball away from Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Jerricho Cotchery (89) during a NFL football game on Thanksgiving at M
Pittsburgh Steelers veteran wide receiver Jerricho Cotchery has been a pleasant surprise this season, because I don’t think anyone predicted that he would have 36 receptions for 509 yards and eight touchdowns through 12 games this season. Heck, that would have been a very bullish 16-game stat-line for Cotchery when it comes to preseason predictions. But Cotchery has been a red-zone maven, and the Steelers No. 3 receiver has also averaged 14.1 yards per reception this season. It’s been an incredibly productive year for Cotchery to this point, and he hasn’t played this well since 2008 when he was a mainstay in the New York Jets passing attack.
Touchdowns are usually a fluky stat to look at, but Cotchery has consistently found the end zone this season with six receiving touchdowns in his pass five games, including a crazy three TDs against the New England Patriots.
There are a lot of statistics pertaining to Jerricho Cotchery this season that really jump off of the page, and one of them is his stats during the final two minutes of the game in either the fourth quarter or overtime. When a team is throwing the football, this is almost always the epicenter of crunch time, and it’s safe to say that Cotchery has rocked this critical time of the game. In fact, he’s statistically been the NFL’s best wide receiver during the final two minutes of either the final quarter or extra time.
According to Pro Football Reference, Cotchery leads all wide receivers in receiving yards during this part of the game with 96 yards, and he’s also caught six of the seven passes thrown at him in total. As a matter of fact, two of those six receptions went for touchdowns, which is definitely nothing to sneeze at.
Cotchery, though, isn’t the only Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver who has been magnificent during the last two minutes of the game, as elite wideout Antonio Brown has caught all eight of the passes thrown at him for 80 yards in total. While that’s terrific, Cotchery’s two TDs and overall average of between 13 and 14 yards per attempt trump Brown’s perfect catch rate and ten yards per attempt average. As for Ben Roethlisberger, he has an 89.7 QB Rating during the final two minutes of OT or the fourth quarter (I’m surprised it isn’t higher than that).