‘Vicious hit’ on Cooper causes scare
Receiver suffers concussion — but dodges much worse
Amari Cooper lay on his left shoulder, eyes closed, his head ever-so-slowly tilting backward until it rested flat on the turf.
After viciously colliding head-on with the lowered left shoulder of Broncos safety Darian Stewart, the Raiders’ top receiver went limp. He had run a slant route, and Derek Carr delivered the ball high. He had to. It hit Cooper’s hands, bounced to the ground and ... boom. Cooper was out cold, players waving their arms for trainers to hurry on the field.
Cooper eventually moved his legs slowly, regaining feeling as a cart and stretcher sat idle by his side. After several minutes, Cooper found the strength to rise to his feet, helped off the field by two trainers while the cart drove away without him.
In the locker room after the game, Cooper limped from the showers to the exit with two Raiders staffers by his side. He wasn’t available for interviews, but all signs indicate he avoided something worse.
Cooper didn’t return to the game after leaving late in the second quarter of Oakland’s (5-6) 21-14 win over the Broncos (3-8) at the Coliseum on Sunday, but he was officially diagnosed with a concussion shortly after his exit.
“It was a vicious hit, the kind we’re trying to remove from our game, quite frankly,” Raiders’ coach Jack Del Rio said. “You see less and less of those. I’m sure the league will take a hard look at it. Those are the kinds of impact hits that don’t need to be a part of our game right now.
“The guy is clearly defenseless and got targeted right in the head. There’s a chance to hit in the strike zone and be somewhere else and not be there like that.”
Carr said he tried to hold back emotions. He couldn’t ignore the guilt, feeling partially responsible for Cooper’s injury, given where he threw the ball. Stewart was flagged 15 yards for unnecessary roughness on the play.
“The way the linebacker played it, I had to throw it where I had to throw it,” Carr said. “But any time he gets hit, I feel terrible. Rodney (Hudson) saw it on my face and said, ‘Hey man, shake it off. We gotta win this game.’ I was like, ‘You’re right, I’ll be good.’ But that’s my brother. I hope that he will be OK. I know he will — I talked to him.”
Seeing Cooper walk under his own power after the game and Carr’s words both assured the receiver may have avoided an injury more severe than the initial reaction indicated.
Before the collision, Cooper caught his only target for a nine-yard touchdown. His fifth score of the year gave the Raiders a 7-0 lead with 8:45 left in the first half.
Cooper’s injury left the Raiders without their top two receivers after Michael Crabtree was ejected following a firstquarter brawl.
The leftovers of Cordarrelle Patterson, Johnny Holton and Seth Roberts more than sufficed, as the trio combining for seven catches and 151 yards.
• NaVorro Bowman went into panic mode when Paxton Lynch rolled left near the goal line.
The Broncos’ quarterback fired the ball into traffic, and Bowman broke up the pass intended for tight end Virgil Green. Bowman fell to the ground in the end zone and the ball deflected off Reggie Nelson.
With the linebacker still flat on his back, the ball fluttered to the turf. Luckily for the Raiders, it landed right on Bowman’s chest for Oakland’s first interception of the season.
“I was 0-for 0-for in that column, too, so to bring the morale to the defense, I’m sure all the veteran guys were trying to get an interception too since the season started. It was great to knock that one down.
“I was in panic mode. The play-fake that came up, I realized it was a pass, so I used a guard to push out of there and run and find the guy that was open. That wasn’t my man. I just dove to break it up and landed on my back and the ball was there.”
Not only did Bowman’s pick end the Raiders’ historic interception drought that lasted 615 minutes and 52 seconds, it jumpstarted a touchdown drive the other way.
• Del Rio and Todd Downing preached this past week about feeding Marshawn Lynch more.
After Oakland’s starting running back logged a season-high 6.1 yards per carry on 11 rushes against the Patriots, they wanted to see more. Lynch’s 18 rushes in Week 1 stood as his season-high, but Sunday he carried 26 times.
He tallied only 67 yards on the ground against one of the best run defense’s in the NFL, but Lynch eclipsed 100 yards from scrimmage for the first time as a Raider by chipping in 44 receiving yards on three catches.