WR Cooper proving his passion for game
FRISCO, Texas – Mad? Glad? Sad? Amari Cooper can be so hard to read, which just might explain whispers on the NFL grapevine a few weeks ago, when Oakland shipped him to Dallas for a first-round pick, that questioned whether the star receiver truly loved the game of football.
“It’s really stupid, to be honest,” Cooper, 24, told USA TODAY of that theory as he sat at his locker this week. He mentioned the training and two-a-day practices going back to his start in organized football at 8 years old. “That’s 17 years. You know what I’m saying? You’ve got to love the game to do that.”
Perceptions can be so tricky, and sometimes so wrong.
Cooper is undoubtedly finding bliss as the missing link for a team that will carry the NFL’s longest winning streak at five games, heading into Sunday’s matchup at Indianapolis. In earning his second NFC Offensive Player of the Week award in three weeks with 217 receiving yards and three TDs against the Eagles last weekend, he looks so revitalized in response to the doubters. Dak Prescott is revived, too, with the ripple effect of an NFL-best 75.1 percent completion rate during the winning streak. Cooper leads the NFL in several categories since his Cowboys debut in Week 9, including 642 receiving yards.
That’s a whole lot of passion. Then again, as he was mired in the Raiders’ funk, it might have been easy to assume his joy for the game waned, maybe to the point of justifying the trade.
“I know exactly what it is,” Cooper said. “It wasn’t that I didn’t love football or love being with the Raiders. Both are untrue. I think it’s just my demeanor. That can be misleading to people sometimes, when you don’t have many different facial expressions as people like to say about me. They’re not able to know if I’m excited, or happy, or whatever.”
In a league where more than a few big-ticket wide receivers over the years have worn emotions on their sleeves, the sidelines, the end zones and in front of the cameras like walking billboards, Cooper is the anti-eccentric. That can’t be bad for chemistry.
“He’s not one of those flamboyant, in-your-face receivers who is screaming on the sideline when you don’t throw him the ball,” Stephen Jones, the Cowboys’ executive vice president of personnel, told USA TODAY. “You know we’ve had them before in Dez (Bryant), Michael (Irvin), T.O. (Terrell Owens).”
The Cowboys have also been burned before in trading first-round picks for wide receivers, as was the case in dealing for Roy Williams (2009, first-, third- and sixth-round picks) and Joey Galloway (2000, two first-round picks).
Given that history, Jones said it was Oakland’s price that needed to be weighed (with Dallas concluding there is no better receiver in next year’s draft) than any confirmation of Cooper’s commitment to the game.
Besides, the Cowboys had a good feel for Cooper’s psyche. New tight ends coach Doug Nussmeier was Cooper’s offensive coordinator for two years at Alabama. And it was Nick Saban who hired Cowboys coach Jason Garrett for his first job as an NFL assistant, during Saban’s stint with the Dolphins.
Jones summed up the advice from Saban as they mulled dealing for Cooper: “What are you waiting for? Just go get him.”
Now Cooper is making the Cowboys’ brain trust look rather clever, contrasting criticism that flowed when the trade went down.
He sounds rather grounded, too. “Obviously, I want to continue to play great,” Cooper said. “But in the grand scheme of things, I’ve been here six weeks. I’ve got to keep putting these games together, keep making plays. I believe that’s who I am. That’s always who I’ve been, it’s the ability God has blessed me with.”
Let Cris Carter, the Hall of Fame wide receiver, add some context. Carter has known Cooper since he was 17, when Cooper played at Miami Northwestern High, where music mogul Luther Campbell was the defensive coordinator.
“This is not some hot streak,” said Carter, who co-hosts “First Things First” on Fox Sports 1. “This is who Amari Cooper is.”
It starts with the route-running. Carter gushes about Cooper’s ability to get in and out of breaks and puts him in a class with Antonio Brown, Odell Beckham Jr., Keenan Allen and DeAndre Hopkins as the NFL’s best route-runners.
He thinks Dallas’ new receivers coach, Sanjay Lal, adds another layer as arguably the league’s best teacher for the position.
“Amari is not a diva, but he does need affirmation,” Carter said. “On his first day in Dallas, Lal told him, ‘I don’t care what happened in Oakland. I’m going to treat you like you’re supposed to be elite. And I expect that.’ ”
And Cooper’s hardly done. Carter expects his impact as a deep threat will grow, which underscores how circumstances and fit might provide the defining backbone to the trade, and loom as one of the most baffling aspects of Cooper’s lack of presence in Jon Gruden’s new Raiders’ offense. Oakland barely tried to stretch the field with him, while in Dallas he’s made highlights with 90- and 75-yard TDs.
Even Raiders owner Mark Davis wonders. For so many years under his father Al’s influence, the deep passing attack was a staple in Oakland. Not anymore.
“It was a different philosophy on the offense,” Davis told reporters during the NFL owners meeting near Dallas this week. “My dad was always trying to play Cliff Branch; he always had the fastest guy on the field no matter what. He might not be able to catch, might not be able to run the route, but he could run. I think he would’ve loved Amari. It just didn’t work out in our system.
“In the future,” Davis added, perhaps ominously, “we might be saying, ‘Damn.’ ”
Just don’t expect Cooper to gloat. His laid-back demeanor is essential to his package, which extends to the heat of the competition that he’s getting the best of.
“It could definitely be a good thing, externally,” Cooper said, “as far as people not knowing how you feel and your opponent, and them not knowing, ‘Dang, I’m talking trash to him, and it’s not getting to him.’ ”
No, Cooper is from the old school of wanting to let his production speak louder than words or assorted forms of drama. This might seem counterintuitive as he plays on a highly, often overexposed stage with the Cowboys. Cooper embraces the buzz surrounding the Cowboys — intensified, naturally, with winning — and he shakes his head when considering the plush facility that attracts daily visitors.
“I mean, who has this?” he said. No, you’re not in Oakland, anymore. “I get it,” he replied.
He’s come to a place where everything is magnified. Where he fits. And where, well, even the team’s owner, Jerry Jones, will publicly muse about Cooper — with another year left on his rookie contract — making a dash to the cash of a new deal. Given the rate for elite receivers, it’s not a stretch that think he could be looking at a next contract in the $20 million a year range.
“He’s the one that writes that check, at the end of the day,” Cooper said of Jones. “But I really haven’t been thinking about it, because the tide can turn. You play one great game and everybody’s like, ‘Oh, he’s going to get paid.’ Then the next two games you play horribly, that narrative changes.”
Cooper knows all about changing fortunes and perceptions, which are sometimes for the better.