Julio Jones. Amari Cooper.

Two of the greatest receivers in SEC history attended the University of Alabama with just one year separating them, coincidentally the 2011 team which featured one of the most dominating defenses in college football history.

Which player turned out the better college football career for the Crimson Tide?

That question came up in conversation at the Saturday Down South office early in the fall, and it’s sparked a debate that’s raged throughout the last several months. Despite what can only be classified as the single greatest season by an offensive skill player in Alabama history, I still believe that Jones had the better three-year career.

Here are the Top 5 misconceptions and fallacies that involve any pro-Cooper comparison with Jones.

1. Recency bias.

The Las Vegas sportsbooks wouldn’t exist without it.

A .500 team goes on a three-game win streak against much better teams thanks to some luck and good timing, and then the general public can’t bet on that team fast enough the next game. The team’s recent strong performance inflates their value in the mind of the square bettor, and Vegas (along with sharp bettors) reaps the benefit.

It’s been more than four years since Jones played a college game, while Cooper capped off the best season by a receiver in Alabama history just last month. In the mind of the square, that skews the narrative in Cooper’s favor automatically. It’s Sociology 101.

Ask ESPN to predict the results of a poll, Top 10 greatest college receivers of all-time, and the network will guarantee results that slant toward recent history. We value what we know, and we know what we remember.

One of the pro-Cooper arguments is that Jones dropped passes at Alabama, while Cooper was a polished route-runner. The implication is that Jones may have been the better athlete, but Cooper’s flawless execution elevated him.

The reality is that drops were a concern at points for both players. Remember Cooper’s less-than-stellar performance against LSU this year? What about his two big drops in a close game against No. 1 Mississippi State?

A brief two-game lapse in concentration, you say. Cooper’s drops don’t compare to Jones’. I suppose you forget that drops were the biggest knock on Cooper following the 2013 season? Check out this pass in the Sugar Bowl against Oklahoma that hit him in the face. He had a handful of those concentration drops in ’13 as well, including a few in the end zone.

Jones’ hands were not the best in college football, and Cooper deserves a slight edge there. But the margin is much smaller than most will lead you to believe, and recency bias is a big reason why.

2. Cooper’s standout 2014.
3. Failure to account for the differences in offense.

Let’s play a game I’ll call “unmask the player.” Can you name each of these?

Player A: 111 catches, 1,292 yards, 15 touchdowns (12 games)
Player B: 118 catches, 1,721 yards, 14 touchdowns (13 games)
Player C: 124 catches, 1,727 yards, 16 touchdowns (14 games)

Before revealing the answers, take a close look. Is there any discernible difference in these figures other than the number of games played?

These are the No. 1 receivers for Lane Kiffin’s offenses his last three full seasons. Player A is Robert Woods in 2011. Player B is Marqise Lee in 2012. Player C is Amari Cooper in 2014. Kiffin has developed a reputation for force-feeding his No. 1 option. Perhaps he’s (smartly) realized that between the new rules hamstringing defensive backs and the fact that even the best college defenders have a difficult time covering a truly elite receiver, there’s no need for balance.

That ’14 season clearly is better than anything Jones produced in college. But comparing the players’ final seasons at the Capstone is, to interject a cliche, apples to oranges.

2010

Alabama attempted 362 passes and 3,395 yards in Jones’ final season at Alabama. Jones accounted for 33.4 percent of the team’s receiving yards that season and caught 21.5 percent of those throws, but three other players caught at least 25 passes. The team didn’t throw deep as liberally with a running game led by Mark Ingram, Trent Richardson, Eddie Lacy and Jalston Fowler and a game manager at quarterback in Greg McElroy. Many of Jones’ catches came in obvious third-and-long situations into double coverage.

2014

Alabama attempted 450 passes and 3,890 yards in 2014, Cooper’s final season at Alabama. Cooper accounted for 44.4 percent of the team’s receiving yards that season and caught 27.6 percent of those throws, and only one other player caught at least 20 passes. The team’s offensive line and backfield weren’t as prolific in the running game, but in part due to a less-dominant defense, the Tide opened up its playbook under Kiffin. The result was a more unpredictable, aggressive Alabama offense that often schemed to deploy short crossing routes and screens to Cooper that allowed him to make plays in the open field.

Sure, Cooper’s ’14 season is more impressive than Jones’ ’10 season. Alabama attempted 88 more passes. The Tide targeted Cooper a higher percentage of the time. Both players drew an impossible amount of attention from defenses, but Cooper’s catches and yards came with an easier degree of difficulty for a variety of reasons.

Cooper also got an advantage at quarterback, where he played his first two seasons with AJ McCarron. Without delving too far into the details, Cooper’s first two seasons coincided with McCarron’s junior and senior years. Jones’ first two seasons coincided with John Parker Wilson’s senior year and McElroy’s junior year.

More on this later, but Alabama has developed and advanced its passing game irrespective of Cooper in recent seasons, whether due to quarterback play, rules changes or the need to provide the defense with greater support.

4. A reliance on stats to tell the entire story

When I worked in the NFL, I spent hours each day on the sideline watching practice and talking with coaches and scouts or interviewing offensive guru Norv Turner. A stats geek, I’d often bring up some impressive (to me) figure.

Without fail, the coach or scout, often despite getting paid hundreds of thousands (or millions), had never heard whatever stat I’d quoted — about the players they’d evaluated on a daily basis, seven days per week, for decades. Usually their response dismissed my angle as a cute effort by a non-football guy, then they delved into specific attributes describing the player I’d brought up as the true judge of how good he was in a vacuum.

Most of the time stats come from opportunity, not ability level.

For example, the careers of Duke receiver Donovan Varner and Georgia Tech receiver Demaryius Thomas overlapped. The two vied for the ACC receiving yards lead in 2009. In a run-heavy triple-option, Thomas finished his college career with 2,339 receiving yards. Playing in David Cutcliffe’s pass-oriented offense at Duke, Varner finished his college career with 2,660 receiving yards.

Which was the better player?

The 5-foot-9 Varner never even got an NFL training camp invite. He has no Wikipedia page. (Have you ever heard of him?) The 6-foot-3 Thomas is a three-time Pro Bowler.

Thomas’ NFL numbers are startling as well. Playing with Tim Tebow and others, he caught 22 and 32 passes for the Denver Broncos in 2010 and 2011. When Peyton Manning arrived in 2012, he caught 94 passes for 1,434 yards and 10 touchdowns. I’ll leave it to you to judge how much of that leap to attribute to third-year development vs. having a quarterback who could get him the football downfield, or to compile a list of receivers who caught more passes than he did in ’11 despite inferior ability.

Non-football people (of which I admittedly am one, although I try to be smart about it) rely on a book report of statistics and biographical accolades to differentiate college players. Legitimate talent evaluators look at that as a nice attempt at a narrative by someone who has little business evaluating and comparing players in a meaningful way.

A player’s skill set, how a defense game plans for said player and the circumstantial opportunities presented to him are far more important indicators of who is the better player. That’s especially true in any sort of nuanced comparison between Jones and Cooper.

I believe in a vacuum the combination of Jones’ assets in college were greater than the combination of Cooper’s by the slimmest of margins, but Cooper produced much better numbers during his junior season for a variety of reasons. Don’t make the mistake of automatically crowning Cooper based on stats.

5. Ignoring the bigger picture and what both players meant to the program.

One of the other things hammered into my head at all three NFL teams for which I worked is that stats matter only in the context of results.

I’ll delve into this in more detail later, but Jones arguably is the single most important signee of the Nick Saban era at Alabama, arguably the cornerstone piece that turned the Tide back to its historical greatness.

It’s hard to talk about and compare the college impacts of these two players without mentioning that as one of many factors.

COMPARING SEASONS

Freshman Edge: Jones

Jones caught 58 passes for 924 yards and four touchdowns. Cooper caught 59 passes for 1,000 yards and 11 touchdowns.

The temptation for the 101-level football fan is to automatically differentiate the two by numbers. Cooper caught one more pass for 76 more yards and seven additional touchdowns.

Jones caught 29.7 percent of his team’s passes despite inferior quarterback play and a much more conservative offense. Cooper caught 26.9 percent of his team’s passes operating with a quarterback who threw 30 touchdowns against just three interceptions while spending the entire year on a mission to prove he was more than a game manager.

As far as the touchdowns, the 2012 offense scored 38.7 points per game, or more than one touchdown per game beyond the 2010 team (30.1).

But here’s the kicker: the ’12 team threw 31 touchdown passes. The ’10 team threw 11. Given that, from a numbers perspective, Jones and Cooper were nearly identical, are we to believe that Cooper was an equal player to Jones on the rest of the field, but off-the-charts better than Jones inside the 10-yard line?

A more intelligent take is that Jones more or less put up identical numbers at an offensive disadvantage, giving him the better season. Compare their bodies as well: Jones was NFL-ready, while Cooper physically resembled a freshman.

Sophomore Edge: Jones

Jones caught 43 passes for 596 yards and four touchdowns. Cooper caught 45 passes for 736 yards and four touchdowns.

Both played injured.

Cooper gets credit for averaging 2.5 yards per catch more than Jones, but it’s not as large of an advantage as you’d think. It’s mostly due to a 99-yard touchdown catch against Auburn. Outside of that one reception, Cooper averaged 14.5 yards per catch in ’13 vs. 13.9 for Jones.

Alabama lost the ’13 Iron Bowl, by the way, while the ’09 Alabama team won its first national championship in 17 years.

Cooper’s sophomore slump corresponded with the emergence a variety of other viable targets — Christion Jones (36 catches for 349 yards), Kevin Norwood (38 catches for 568 yards) and DeAndrew White (32 catches for 534 yards). Cooper faced double teams on occasion, but as teams realized he wasn’t as dangerous — likely because he wasn’t 100 percent — they played him more straight up. McCarron, the Heisman runner up that year, still was able to help prop up Cooper.

Jones’ sophomore slump corresponded with a lack of other options in the passing game. Beyond Marquis Maze (31 catches for 523 yards), the team threw to 6-foot-6, 256-pound tight end Colin Peek, not exactly a downfield threat. Even injured, defenses blanketed Jones with double coverage. He still managed to come up huge in wins against LSU and Auburn, and proved a major distraction in the SEC and national championship games.

Junior Edge: Cooper

We’ve covered this already. Cooper’s ’14 season is more impressive than Jones’ ’10 season.

Overall, all three of the seasons are much tougher to differentiate than you’d expect, especially if you take time to look beyond a stats database. Even by stats, it’s very difficult to tell a difference between the first two seasons of these players. But considering other factors, Jones wins two of the three seasons.

OVERALL COLLEGE PRODUCTION

Edge: Cooper

Rather than spending endless hours encapsulating Cooper’s tremendous stats in dozens of different snippets, suffice to say that as a college receiver, based on numbers alone, Cooper produced more than Jones. There’s no argument here.

RECEIVER SKILLS (ROUTE-RUNNING, CATCHING)

Edge: Cooper

His hands are better, but not by as much as you’d think.

Cooper’s biggest edge is in route-running. Much like Jones from a physical standpoint (more on that soon), Cooper arrived in Tuscaloosa with All-SEC type polish running routes, understanding defenses and getting in and out of breaks.

You’d be hard-pressed to find a more precise route-runner at the college level, and Cooper didn’t have to make huge strides to become that.

EXTRAS (BLOCKING, RUNNING AFTER THE CATCH)

Edge: Jones

Both players were tremendous assets in the open field. But Jones’ stiff-arms remind me of Adrian Peterson. He smashed many an SEC player and would-be tackler in the face. And, hard as it is to believe, the 6-foot-3, 220-pound Jones may have been a hair faster than the 6-foot-1, 210-pound Cooper. There’s plenty of footage of Jones running away from the fastest LSU defensive backs.

Even if you quibble with that assessment, Jones owns a dominating advantage as a blocker. One of the most underrated skills as a receiver, especially at the University of Alabama, is the ability to contribute in the running game. This is the single widest gap in skill set between the college versions of the two players, and Cooper’s biggest weakness. (He’s done too much of this.)

Jones was a devastating run blocker in college, one of the best the SEC has ever seen. It was probably his biggest strength coming out of college if you remove relative value from the equation.

ATHLETICISM

Edge: Jones

I got into a heated argument on this in September with someone who swore to me that Cooper would best Jones’ NFL Combine time in the 40-yard dash.

Here’s the part where I say I told you so.

Jones ran 4.39 seconds with a stress fracture in his foot. Cooper ran 4.42 seconds.

Taller by two inches, Jones also jumped 5.5 inches higher in the vertical leap and an eye-popping 15 inches further in the standing broad jump. Quickness, you say? Jones bested Cooper in the three-cone drill as well.

Jones arrived at Alabama weighing 220 pounds. He weighs 220 pounds for the Atlanta Falcons. He’s stronger, faster, taller, quicker and jumps higher. Cooper is a tremendous athlete, but he’s just not the same caliber as Jones, even after playing catch-up for three years in Tuscaloosa (he arrived weighing just 183 pounds and added 27 pounds during his college career).

NFL POTENTIAL

Edge: Jones

Cooper will be a first-round pick come April 30. Maybe even a Top 10 pick as the No. 1 overall receiver.

Jones went No. 6 to the Falcons, who mortgaged several draft picks to acquire him.

The two project as very different players in the NFL. Jones can blow the top off of defenses with a combination of straight-line speed, physicality and leaping ability. Less than a handful of NFL receivers are more athletic than he is, all-around. He’s averaged 15.6 yards per catch during his four-year career and wracked up more than 4,300 receiving yards.

If Jones is a slightly discounted version of Calvin Johnson, Cooper could be the same for Torry Holt. That could mean an outstanding career — Holt was a seven-time Pro Bowl receiver — but he’s not the type of player for which you have to build an entire defensive game plan. He won’t win jump balls deep downfield. He’ll beat you with precision timing and route-running, assuming he doesn’t get jammed at the line.

Both have a chance to make an impact on the NFL for many years to come, but Jones should finish with the better pro career.

IMPACT ON THE PROGRAM

Edge: Jones

To me, this is where Jones separates himself the most.

Cooper is Tim Cook to Jones’ Steve Jobs.

Arguably, Apple has never been better on paper, pulling in more and more revenue. But Cook created the brand.

It’s hard to replicate in words the impact Jones had when he chose a 7-6 Alabama team as the nation’s No. 1 overall receiver in the ’08 class. The first marquee five-star signee of Nick Saban’s tenure, Jones arrived with an NFL body and immediately jump-started the offense. An intense competitor, he served as both a national symbol that opened the floodgates in recruiting and as someone who worked in conjunction with Saban to raise the expectation level at practice each and every day.

Alabama went from a laughingstock to a national champion in just two years, largely due to Jones’ decision to choose the Tide. Would Cooper, a Miami product, have even come to Alabama if Jones hadn’t been there first?

Cooper is an all-time great, but the Tide has plenty of those since Saban arrived in ’07. He’s a next-in-the-assembly-line player following the trail first blazed by Jones.

The ’08 signee was the most heralded recruit in the country that year, combining his rating with his decision to attend Alabama at the dawning of the Saban era. Yet he helped the team win a national title in his worst season, gave the school three tremendous years and left as the No. 6 player in the draft. How many other No. 1 recruits can say the same about their college careers?

Cooper more than lived up to expectations as a four-star player, but his legacy is more of an individual player that put up huge numbers in a transcendent season that marked a new era of wide-open offense at Alabama.

Jones was the first drop of water to cascade down what has become Niagara Falls — an all-time great era within the SEC.

Regardless of whom you favor, it’s difficult to distinguish between the two all-time greats, and Alabama will be lucky to land another receiver of that caliber any time in the next decade.