After his first two seasons, Amari Cooper looked like one of the league’s most promising young wide receivers. But inconsistency followed, and the former No. 5 overall pick was never able to recapture his status as a reliable target in Oakland.
Although the up-and-down pattern Cooper set in Oakland persisted during his initial run as a Cowboy, he averaged 80.6 yards per game in his Dallas games after posting posting 46.7 per contest in six 2018 Raider games. Cooper, during an appearance on PFT Live (via the Dallas Morning News), called last season’s scenery change “necessary” for him to reach the heights he did in Dallas.
“I don’t think it was a good fit for me,” Cooper said of his time in Oakland, adding that he reached this conclusion early last season. “I don’t think I was really able to showcase my skills there for whatever reasons. I’ll call it extenuating circumstances. But for whatever reason, I wasn’t able to reach my heights and I kind of knew that I needed to be gone in order to do some of the things that I wanted to do as an NFL player.”
“I felt like there are things that I wanted to do out there on the field during the games, certain plays that I wanted to be called and certain routes that I wanted to run that just weren’t a part of the game plan.”
The Raiders employed three offensive coordinators during Cooper’s three-plus-season stay. Cooper put together back-to-back 1,000-yard seasons under Bill Musgrave in 2015-16 but just 680 in 14 games in Todd Downing‘s offense in 2017. He was on a similar pace in Jon Gruden‘s attack last season, with 10-, nine- and zero-yard outings clouding his two 100-plus-yard showings to start the year.
Cooper has previously said he believed Mark Davis wanted him gone, and although a contradictory report emerged on that topic, the 25-year-old wideout said Khalil Mack‘s trade made him feel less secure about his standing with the Raiders. Cooper and Mack share an agent, Joel Segal. The Raiders drafted safety Johnathan Abram with the pick acquired in the midseason Cooper trade.
“After the Khalil trade, it was like here’s a guy who’s a very dominant player in this league and he’s proven that he’s one of the best players in the entire league and they traded him away,” Cooper said, “so what makes anyone else feel like they’re safe and they’re not tradable? That was kind of the sense in the locker room.”
The Cowboys and Cooper are currently working on an extension, though talks hit a stalemate last month and may be on hold until Julio Jones (and possibly Michael Thomas) help clear up what figures to be a new-look receiver market. Cooper has said he would be comfortable playing this season without an extension in place.
Here is what happened the second he showed up in Dallas so did his hands.
Good thing Gruden picked up a worn out physco for a guard & a 31 yo wr over two 20’s players in their prime! Raiders will fail again, but Johnny has JUST another 8 years to go on his contract.
I am the ultimate raider hater and a diehard Chiefs fan and there is no way you can overlook this draft. Carr is overrated but they really have nowhere to go but up. Do i see them being more than a 3 rd place team in 2019,no. Do i see them being this bad for an extended period of time. No. Is it absolutely impossible that they can win a Super Bowl 5 to 10 years from now.yes. You never know. With that being said GO CHIEFS.
I meant they can win a SB. No one has a crystal ball.
But they will be entertaining! They
should be on
Hard Knocks!
Gruden isn’t interested in a SB, he’s into selling seats in Vegas. That was the point of his hire and the trade for AB. He’ll market himself to the commercials while collecting from the Raiders.
You don’t build a team with 30 year old players, sorry but that the NFL in a nutshell.
George Allen has the best win percentage of anyone who coached 150 or more NFL games and he would agree….you build with players older than 30. lol.
Ironman after you stated your a chiefs fan i knew you werent credible? Carr overrated? Boasting a 3:1 td to int ratio with one of the worst lines the last 2 years? The most overhyped is mahomes being placed on an already playoff team surrounded with 3 probowlers. We shall see how good truly mahomes is after his rookie season.
Worn out the man has been probowl caliber in each of the last most recent seasons. I guess ignorance is bliss, they also got a proven hall of famer wr for 3 years not an up and down brick hands like cooper. Watched enough games to know he isnt that great of a wr, lacks hands and seperation, most of his yards in dallas were attributed to broken plays and missed coverage. Paying this dude 20 million a year would be criminal.
Part of it is gruden….part of it is he started trying again once he left. Another part is he’s on a better team now
Not a “Chucky’ fan but I’d be inclined to give him a pass on this deal. When you have a WR who is suggesting that he should have been calling the pass routes and not the OC, then you’ve got a potential negative influence on the team that your probably better without.
Exactly. What I’m reading in this article is a guy saying “Oh they traded that guy away, so why even try anymore?”. He gave up. And as the pressure on him built after every dropped pass, he curled up into a little ball instead of going out there with focus and determination to prove he was worth keeping.
I’m a Raider fan and I wanted nothing but for Coop to succeed, but there was always talk about him being too passive. He didn’t have the killer instinct that most great players have. I’m sure Gruden saw that immediately and it was unacceptable to him. He probably got tough on Coop and that’s where you get comments from Coop about “not being a good fit”. Basically his feeling got hurt.