Dallas Cowboys wide receiver Amari Cooper compared his return from COVID-19 on Thursday night to Michael Jordan’s “Flu Game” in the 1997 NBA Finals.
After missing the previous two games on reserve/COVID-19, Cooper was back on the field for the Cowboys’ 27-17 victory over the New Orleans Saints. The former Alabama All-American played 24 of Dallas’ 70 offensive snaps.
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The Cowboys put Cooper on reserve/COVID-19 on Nov. 19, and he didn’t practice again until Wednesday, when he was listed as a limited participant in Dallas’ work the day before the game.
“I knew I had between 20, 25 plays,” Cooper said. “They told me before the game. They just wanted to ease me back into things, knowing I didn’t practice really. And knowing how COVID can affect the lungs and heart and stuff like that, they didn’t really know my conditioning. I didn’t really know my conditioning, so I think that was the plan.”
Cooper caught two passes against the Saints – one for 41 yards and the other for no gain.
The 41-yarder on a third-and-7 snap in the first quarter moved Dallas to the New Orleans 36-yard line and led to the first touchdown of the game.
Cooper also drew a pass-interference penalty on a third-and-10 throw that moved Dallas to the Saints 31 on a series that resulted in a 13-7 lead with a field goal on the final snap of first half.
“It was tough,” Cooper said. “Jordan played with the flu. That’s how I looked at it. But it was a restriction of not being able to play with what I had, so it was tough, knowing that I could have physically gone out there and played, but the restrictions didn’t allow me to do so.”
In Jordan’s famous performance, the basketball great, despite an illness, had 38 points, seven rebounds, five assists and three steals as the Chicago Bulls won Game 5 of the 1997 NBA Finals on their way to a six-game victory over the Utah Jazz.
Cooper answered postgame questions in a video for the Cowboys’ official website. He did not talk to reporters after the game, and he was not asked if he had any regrets about being unvaccinated.
Under NFL rules, a vaccinated player with a positive test for COVID-19 can return to the active roster if he is asymptomatic for 48 hours and has two negative polymerase chain-reaction tests 24 hours apart.
Unvaccinated players are required to quarantine for 10 days after a positive test. After that period, they can return to the active roster when asymptomatic.
The Cowboys had an 7-2 record when Cooper left the lineup. Without the four-time Pro Bowler, Dallas lost to the Kansas City Chiefs 19-9 on Nov. 21 and the Las Vegas Raiders 36-33 in overtime on Nov. 25.
Between losses, Cowboys owner and general manager Jerry Jones said Cooper’s unvaccinated status “popped” Dallas because it sidelined the wide receiver for two games instead of one.
“He’s one of the highest-character guys that you will ever be around in any area,” Jones said of Cooper. “He’s outstanding in his introspect and how he does things. Nobody is saying he isn’t outstanding, but this is a classic case of how it can impact a team. At the end of the day, this is team. You cannot win anything individually. ...
“The facts are it is a ‘we’ thing when you walk into the locker room. And anybody is being counted on to pull his weight.”
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on Twitter at @AMarkG1.
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