Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Sammie Coates is our Week 5 Bring It Down Award winner!
Pick our Week 5 #BringItDownAward winner! Who had the most impressive receiving game? #KeepPounding #ForTheShoe #HereWeGo #RaiderNation
— Best NFL Polls (@Best_NFL_Polls) October 11, 2016
Coates had a career day, pulling down 6 catches for 139 yards and 2 touchdowns. 72 yards of that total came on this bomb from Ben Roethlisberger.
Sammie Coates with the wheels! #Flash #Steelers https://t.co/3jIjgq8Ttc
— Blitzburgh (@Steel_Curtain4) October 12, 2016
This play shows what makes Sammie Coates such a threat–pure speed. He ran a 4.43 forty-yard dash in the 2015 NFL Combine. After a quiet rookie year in which he had a grand total of 1 catch for 11 yards during the regular season, Coates came into this season with some serious training camp hype. The hype definitely seems justified now, with the former Aurburn receiver on pace for 1,347 yards
Following the suspension of fellow receiver and premier deep threat Martavis Bryant, Coates put in a lot of offseason work to get in great shape and become a more polished pro receiver. Here’s a throwback to what he did this offseason:
Sammie Coates! #Steelers pic.twitter.com/WYYS8pUTva
— Blitzburgh (@Steel_Curtain4) July 30, 2016
Coates is actually a very similar player to Martavis Bryant. He is at his best when he is taking the top off of defenses and taking advantage of Big Ben’s rocket of an arm. The knock on him and Bryant both is their penchant for drops. If Coates had come down with the balls he dropped against the Jets, his stat line would have been way more impressive. But some of those drops could be attributed to the fact that Coates had to get stitches in his hand during halftime.
Bleacher Report did a great break down of Sammie Coates’ performance so far this year in the video below:
Is Sammie Coates available in your fantasy league? The Steelers WR has turned into the top deep threat in the NFL this season pic.twitter.com/cxpr3Cqr4i
— Bleacher Report (@BleacherReport) October 12, 2016
Sammie Coates has really developed into one of the league’s premier deep threats, replacing Martavis Bryant in that role in the Steelers’ offense across from Antonio Brown. With defenses having to respect both Antonio Brown and Le’Veon Bell (our Week 5 Ground and Pound Award winner), Coates will definitely have a lot of opportunities to continue to show off his deep ball game.
Big Ben has faith that Coates is the real deal. After his Week 5 performance against the Jets, I think it’s time the rest of us should too.
(Photo Credit: Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)
(Photo Credit: Justin K. Aller/Getty Images)