Cotchery's Building on Many Fronts

Cotchery's Building on Many Fronts
Published: 06-11-07
By Randy Lange
Editor-in-Chief
Article Permalink: http://www.newyorkjets.com/articles/cotchery-s-building-on-many-fronts

It's inspiring to watch Jerricho Cotchery building his foundation.
That's more than just a metaphor, of course. We've written about the Cotchery Foundation before on newyorkjets.com. Cotchery's growing organization will be conducting two football camps for disadvantaged kids in the coming weeks. More on that later.

But the foundation Cotchery has put down as an NFL wide receiver appears quite sturdy entering his fourth season as a Jet. Just as last year, he's adding levels to that base all the time, most recently during the OTA practices.

"I'm just trying to get better in certain areas," Cotchery explained. "Each day I want to focus on one or two specific areas, just come out and hit my goals. If I can't get enough done that day, it goes to the next day. So I'm just building experience each and every day to where I can become a master in all those areas."

His mastery was on display at Friday's workout. To the untrained eye, Cotchery — or, as many Green & White fans have taken to calling him, "Catchery" — had an excellent practice.

First he separated on a post-corner route and gathered in a perfectly placed Chad Pennington pass. Next he snagged a Chad pass down the middle, then a shorter dart in linebacker traffic.

Many of these plays came at the expense of first-round DB Darrelle Revis, who was working with the first defense a lot Friday. And interestingly, one of the best plays Revis has made yet as a Jet, at least among those reporters have been able to see, also illustrated where Cotchery's head is at.

Jerricho put on a move to get past Revis and get open down the left side. But Revis recovered enough to make an amazing leap and get his fingertips on the pass, deflecting it enough to prevent a catch-and-run behind him.

"Yeah, I think he got a hand on it," Cotchery said. "That's a perfect example of one of the routes where I didn't work him enough. He's a good enough player — he's a first-round pick. If you don't make a good enough move, a good defensive back is supposed to be on your route.
"That was one of those routes where I didn't give him a good enough shake. I shook him a little bit, but he still recovered and so he was able to make a good play. That was very encouraging."

An encouraging play for Revis. And a play that encouraged J-Co, who signed that contract extension in March, to keep examining his foundation.

Last off-season, among other things, Cotchery wanted to get faster. Not easy, but he worked hard to shave decimal points off his time, and it all showed up in his career-high 82 catches and 961 yards, and on his secondary-splitting 77-yard TD acceleration in the playoff loss at New England.

Now, among all the things Cotchery's working on this off-season, he's reinventing his route running, trying to give DBs a multitude of looks on the same route to prevent them from keying on any one look.

"I just listen to a lot of guys, like Tiger Woods," he said. "In the off-season or whenever, Tiger just breaks down his entire swing. I think you can do that sometimes as a receiver, just work on all your crafts, and you just build it back up every day."

The construction continues off the field as well. Cotchery just opened his new Web site, www.Jerricho89.com, for his business, and among the attractions there are the information on those two football camps.

"We're starting off with a camp coming up June 23, myself, the Cotchery Foundation, and Kerry Rhodes and his Rhodes Foundation. Both of us are from Birmingham, Ala., so we wanted to do something in that area for those kids."

He also has a camp scheduled for July 5 at William Paterson University in Wayne, N.J.

"I'll see how many guys will still be around this area and try to get them to come out and help the kids out from around Wayne," Cotchery said. "I want to focus on the areas where I'm at. Hopefully, I can get something done in this area [Hempstead, N.Y.] before we move."
That move to the Jets' new Jersey digs is still a little off in the distance. But wherever the kids are from, they'll reap the benefits of No. 89's master plan.

"The foundation is basically for underprivileged youth," he said. "I'm just trying to inspire them to conceive and achieve their goals."

Just as he has conceived and is achieving his goals as an NFL wideout.