There has been speculation that the Raiders might still be looking for a little veteran help at wide receiver even though they took three wideouts in last month’s draft.
Jakobi Meyers turns 29 in November and is entering the final year of his deal with the Raiders. After Meyers, Tre Tucker is the only receiver on the roster with any real regular season experience, and he’s only entering his third NFL season with 66 career receptions.
With that in mind, it was no secret the Pittsburgh Steelers had been shopping George Pickens for the last few months, and without question, he would have upgraded the Raiders’ wide receiver room.
Unfortunately, Pickens wasn’t a great locker room presence in Pittsburgh and the Steelers sent him to Dallas this week in exchange for a third-round pick.
Yahoo and FOX Sports host Jason Fitz talked about the Pickens trade this week and he believes the Raiders were smart to steer clear of Pickens.
“I am so glad [the Raiders] did not acquire George Pickens and I say that knowing that I think that George Pickens, when he plays the way he can play, is one of the best in the league. I think he’s a great player when he’s on. He is a great player,” Fitz said on Raider Nation Radio’s Morning Tailgate.
“I will just remind the entire Raiders fan base that we have seen what it looks like to have a Hall of Fame wide receiver, not give a **** and Randy Moss, we watched that. To this day, and I’ve said this to Randy on campus at ESPN, I don’t understand how you can be a Hall of Famer when you quit on your team for an entire year. I will die on that hill all day long. I look at George Pickens and think, ‘Man, you ain’t Randy Moss and your effort is about the same when you don’t care.’ I’m out on that.”
As for other wide receivers on the market, Fitz thinks the Raiders should take the patient route and get a good look at the young wide receivers on the roster before signing a veteran.
“The people available in August are not going to be much worse than the people available today. Wait it out. Let’s see how these guys look on the practice field,” Fitz said.
“I think Besh is going to turn out to be a really, really strong draft pick for this team. I think the future got a lot brighter at the wide receiver position. Knowing that Jakobi [Meyers] is going into his last year of his deal, I understand that, but the future in that room got a lot brighter with the acquisition of Besh. It was a really good pick.”
Last but not least, Fitz addressed the idea of Amari Cooper returning to the Raiders and he doesn’t love the idea.
“For everyone that says go out and get Amari, I don’t know that Amari even wants to come back to the Raiders. We don’t know that. It wasn’t a great period in his life,” Fitz said. “I just think sometimes those things get glossed over. I think fans are having a conversation in the vacuum.”
Cooper split the 2024 season between the Cleveland Browns and Buffalo Bills and put up 547 yards on 44 receptions. He wasn’t particularly dynamic even with Josh Allen as his quarterback and it doesn’t seem like anyone in the league is in a hurry to throw a lot of money at Cooper.
Cooper did, however, put up a career high 1,250 receiving yards with the Browns in 2023, so he would still be an upgrade at wide receiver for a lot of teams around the league.
x: @raidersbeat
I had season seats in Oak Town when LOOOOSER RANDY was here…
They threw a ball to him in the end zone…he dropped his hands and stopped cause he was going to get hit.
What a LOOOOSER.