Looking at Amari Cooper’s offensive pass interference penalties in New Orleans

One of the weirder things to happen to the Dallas Cowboys during their loss to the New Orleans Saints actually happened twice. Does that make it doubly weird?

Amari Cooper heard his name called for offensive pass interference twice. He’s one of the game’s best route runners and therefore is generally not in a position where he needs to interfere, so this was quite strange to see from him of all people.

Seeing Cooper flagged for OPI twice in one game is a rarity. It happened in New Orleans and both flags were met with a lot of frustration from Cowboys fans. Watching them back it doesn’t look like Cooper does much to interfere with Marshon Lattimore, but unfortunately Lattimore sold them quite well.

The first one is the more “egregious” penalty of the two in my opinion. There is legitimate contact made by Cooper and while it’s a light call, by the letter of the law you can say that Cooper commits the penalty. It sucks, but it’s fair.

Obviously, the New Orleans Saints are becoming synonymous with questionable pass interference rules considering what happened to them in the NFC Championship Game last season. Sean Payton was vocal about the fact that they were 12-1 with that officiating crew dating back to 2006, stuff like that only adds to the speculation surrounding officiating.

The second OPI call against Cooper is the more impressive effort from Marshon Lattimore. It looks like a penalty mainly because Lattimore sells it so well. You can think that’s cheap if you want but it’s part of the strategy of the game, he did it and it worked.

It was mentioned on the broadcast, but the NFL is in fact leaning towards calling more OPI penalties which puts us in frustrating spots as fans of the game. In the world of penalties in general, it feels like the referees are walking on eggshells because they don’t want to be caught in a bad situation like last year’s NFC title game (or the Saints game in Los Angeles this season).

What do you think about Cooper’s OPI penalties? Were they fair, totally wrong, or what?