Amari Cooper is headed to Dallas, but it doesn’t look like a trade that will have a big winner. Two sinking ships re-shuffling deck chairs, it seems.
The Raiders will receive a first-round pick, at least, so they seem to be getting the better end of the deal. As poorly as Cooper has been playing, they were going to have no interest in signing him or even picking up the fifth-year option on his rookie contract. I can’t say for sure, but I would guess they gladly would have taken a second-round pick for him.
“It was an opportunity that I couldn’t pass on, to get a first-round pick,” Oakland GM Reggie McKenzie told the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “In this business here, I thought that was invaluable for me. It was something I felt I had to do.”
With Cooper gone, you can be sure Jared Cook and Jordy Nelson will continue to catch plenty of passes for the Raiders. They’ll also need to get others more involved – Seth Roberts and Martavis Bryant, perhaps. When Cooper got hurt early in their last game, Roberts caught 5 passes. There were reports in the middle of September that Bryant is facing a year-long suspension and is being allowed to play while his suspension is heard.
I don’t expect a move to Dallas to do much to spark Cooper’s production. More likely, I think, he’s numbers will decline further. The Cowboys don’t have much of a passing game, and I don’t think injecting Cooper into that mess will improve it much. Dallas so far is averaging only 202 passing yards, with 8 TD passes in seven games. The Raiders thus far has averaged 95 more passing yards per game (with 7 TDs in six games).
Dak Prescott doesn’t seem to be much of a passer. I don’t see him putting up top-20 passing numbers anytime soon.
To me, Cooper looks like a pretty ordinary receiver. He doesn’t have unusual size or speed – he doesn’t create matchup problems. He was drafted with a top-5 pick, of course, but if teams could wind the clock back, I would expect he would be selected in the third round.
Cooper has been particularly ineffective around the end zone. Inside the 10 over the last two years, he’s seen 18 targets, and he’s caught only 5 of them (including 3 TDs and a pair of 2-point conversions). In six games under Jon Gruden (not listed here) Cooper caught 1 of 3 passes in that part of the field.
In the 2016-17 seasons, there were 33 wide receivers with at least 12 targets inside the 10. Cooper was one of only two of those 33 who caught fewer than 30 percent of the passes thrown his way (see chart below).
Prescott has never been effective in that part of the field either. Taking these two struggling players and putting them together, expectations should be modest. If I were walking into draft today, I wouldn’t be thinking at all about making Cooper one of the first 40 wide receivers selected (and I’m not saying he’d be in my top 50).
| WIDE RECEIVERS INSIDE 10 (2016-17) | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Player | Att | Com | Pct | TD/2pt |
| Jarvis Landry, Mia. | 20 | 17 | 85% | 11+1 |
| Jordy Nelson, G.B. | 24 | 18 | 75% | 14 |
| Mohamed Sanu, Atl. | 17 | 12 | 71% | 8+1 |
| Michael Thomas, N.O. | 20 | 14 | 70% | 11 |
| Sterling Shepard, NYG | 13 | 9 | 69% | 4 |
| Brandin Cooks, N.O.-N.E. | 13 | 9 | 69% | 5+1 |
| Nelson Agholor, Phil. | 13 | 8 | 62% | 3+1 |
| Justin Hardy, Atl. | 12 | 7 | 58% | 7 |
| Seth Roberts, Oak. | 12 | 7 | 58% | 3+2 |
| Davante Adams, G.B. | 19 | 11 | 58% | 8+1 |
| Brandon LaFell, Cin. | 14 | 8 | 57% | 5 |
| Doug Baldwin, Sea. | 14 | 8 | 57% | 5+1 |
| Emmanuel Sanders, Den. | 16 | 9 | 56% | 5 |
| Alshon Jeffery, Chi.-Phil. | 16 | 9 | 56% | 6+3 |
| T.Y. Hilton, Ind. | 13 | 7 | 54% | 2+1 |
| Larry Fitzgerald, Ariz. | 19 | 10 | 53% | 4+1 |
| Michael Crabtree, Oak. | 23 | 12 | 52% | 9+3 |
| A.J. Green, Cin. | 12 | 6 | 50% | 5 |
| Allen Robinson, Jac. | 12 | 6 | 50% | 4+1 |
| DeAndre Hopkins, Hou. | 17 | 8 | 47% | 8 |
| Keenan Allen, LAC | 15 | 7 | 47% | 4 |
| Chris Hogan, N.E. | 13 | 6 | 46% | 3 |
| Antonio Brown, Pitt. | 22 | 10 | 45% | 8+1 |
| Demaryius Thomas, Den. | 22 | 10 | 45% | 6+1 |
| Mike Evans, T.B. | 22 | 10 | 45% | 7+3 |
| Kelvin Benjamin, Car. | 12 | 5 | 42% | 5 |
| Julio Jones, Atl. | 18 | 7 | 39% | 3 |
| Marvin Jones, Det. | 17 | 6 | 35% | 5 |
| Jamison Crowder, Wash. | 12 | 4 | 33% | 2 |
| Dez Bryant, Dall. | 19 | 6 | 32% | 5 |
| Adam Thielen, Minn. | 13 | 4 | 31% | 3 |
| Amari Cooper, Oak. | 18 | 5 | 28% | 3+2 |
| Jermaine Kearse, Sea.-NYJ | 14 | 2 | 14% | 2 |
—Ian Allan