Veteran wide receiver Amari Cooper is considered by many to be the top free agent wideout on the market, and some have brought up the idea of him potentially returning to the Raiders.
The Raiders have a youthful wide receiver group, with only Jakobi Meyers and Tre Tucker having real experience at the NFL level – and that could make the Raiders a candidate to add a veteran wide receiver before the start of the season.
But Cooper has a history with the Raiders and team color commentator Lincoln Kennedy doesn’t think he would be a good fit with his former team. On the Locked on Raiders podcast this week, Kennedy said he felt like Cooper never wanted to play for the Raiders in the first place.
This was Kennedy’s response when asked if he thought Cooper should return to the team that drafted him…
“No. Let me preface this by saying, I remember when Amari was drafted, I was one of the first guys in the Raiders interview. I looked in his eyes and realized he didn’t want to be a Raider,” Kennedy said.
“I’m not saying that it’s slight in him. You don’t have any choice, a lot of times, where you’re going to be drafted. He didn’t enjoy his time in Oakland. That’s why he couldn’t wait to get out of there,” Kennedy continued. “He thought he found success in Dallas. My point for Amari is, he never took the next step to develop his route running skills. He is not a good route running receiver.”
“[He’s a] solid receiver when you get him in open space, but not a good route running receiver for what I think the Raiders need. I think they have something like that already on their roster. It doesn’t make sense for me to… go out and spend money over a name. That’s all it is right now. That’s all Amari Cooper is, is a name. And I don’t think they should do it.”
Cooper has been inconsistent over the course of his NFL career, but he was better than most at his position in his three and a half years with the Raiders.
As a player, Cooper seemed to disengage at times, and that’s a trait that followed him to three teams since he left the Raiders in 2018.
Kennedy would know better than most, but for reasons maybe only Cooper knows, he hasn’t found a team or an offense in his NFL career that could consistently get the best out of him.
Cooper played for the Cleveland Browns and Buffalo Bills in 2024 and even with Josh Allen as his quarterback, the 30-year-old veteran put up pedestrian numbers in Buffalo.
As for other wide receivers on the market, Yahoo and FOX Sports host Jason Fitz thinks the Raiders should take the patient route and get a good look at the young wide receivers on the roster before signing anyone.
“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 on the team’s flagship radio station in May.
“I think [Jack] 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.”
Fitz also addressed Cooper in the conversation…
“For everyone that says go out and get Amari, I don’t know that Amari even wants to come back… We don’t know that [but] 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.”
x: @raidersbeat
For college football fans, the forced rest is almost over.
The college football tournament will be here soon and the favorites to win the championship are Ohio State, Texas and Georgia.
The Buckeyes are the no. 1 team in the country, as reflected in the odds by the major bookmakers that can be consulted on oddschecker.
Who will YOU be rooting for this year in college football?