Cowboys Fantasy Football take: Amari Cooper will be 'real effective' despite foot pain

FRISCO - I ask Amari Cooper a very simple question. He offers back two very simple answers.

How effective can the Dallas Cowboys star receiver be if he's asked to play the regular season with his sore foot?

“Real effective,” Cooper responds from his locker here at The Star. “I've played with a lot of foot injuries, high-ankle sprains, ... But I don't think I'm going to have to play with it. ... I’m not really worried.”

In other words, Cooper -- who has sat out almost three weeks now with irritation to his plantar fascia -- is confident that he can play through the pain, which he says is presently down to a "3'' on a scale of 1-to-10. But he's also confident the issue will have faded greatly in time for the Week 1 game against the Giants.

This is critical news to the Cowboys, of course -- and to all of us who play Fantasy Football. Both parties are hoping for a repeat of 2018, when after being traded to Dallas by Oakland, Cooper in nine regular-season games totaled 53 catches for 725 yards and six touchdowns. He made the Pro Bowl again and is largely credited with being the fulcrum that turned around Dallas and helped it to a playoff appearance and playoff victory.

“I’m pretty good at playing with foot injuries,'' Cooper says confidently, proudly pointing out that he dealt wit a similar problem as a rookie with the Raiders but was good for 72 receptions for 1,070 yards and six touchdowns that year with the Raiders, and that he had plantar fasciitis as a sophomore at Alabama but nevertheless caught 45 passes for 736 yards and four touchdowns in 11 games.

Cooper, by the way, terms this injury "plantar fasciitis'' though technically, the Cowboys tell me, they term it "irritation to the plantar fascia.'' The plantar fascia is the ligament that runs along the bottom of the foot to connect the heel bone to the toes. It can be argued that as "itis'' literally means "irritation,'' this level of pain and soreness is, by any other name "plantar fasciitis.''

But whatever the Cowboys choose to call it, it's more than the "heel bruise'' that was first assumed. And yet it's far less than debilitating.

“It’s not really that bad, especially just walking around,” says Cooper, suggesting that if Dallas had a real game this weekend (rather than Saturday's preseason visit from the Texans), he'd be playing. “But to do the things that I do on the field ... obviously I’m cutting really hard, I’m stopping really hard.”

And those things, at his Pro Bowl level, he cannot quite yet do.

Behind the scenes, the Cowboys told me a week ago, they term his status "week to week for the summer.'' Coach Jason Garrett is suggesting he might begin practice next week but that Dallas will "be deliberate with him.''

We are now two weeks away from the opener, with Cooper having been outstanding in Oxnard behind us, and with the possibility of a contract extension ahead of him. But all indications are that Amari's head is in the right place. Dallas has other viable fantasy targets at receiver in Michael Gallup and Randall Cobb, and the effectiveness of QB Dak Prescott is going to rise when holdout Ezekiel Elliott finally shows up. But Amari can still be that "fulcrum.'' And if he's not worried, maybe Fantasy owners don't have to worry too much, either.

“Of course I feel like I’m missing things because I’m missing practice,” Cooper says. “But I’m able to keep up mentally. ... Just do a lot of stretching, a lot of treatment. ... I'm not worried.''