At the NFL owners’ meetings this week in Irving, Texas, Raiders owner Mark Davis said he and Cowboys owner Jerry Jones shared a few moments talking about wide receiver Amari Cooper.
“We laughed a little,” Davis told the Dallas Morning News. “Results are what speak. That’s what it’s all about.”
Since the Raiders traded Cooper – their former first-round draft pick – to Dallas, Cooper has been a star in the Cowboys offense. In six games, he’s had 40 catches for 642 yards and six touchdowns. In a victory over the defending Super Bowl-champion Eagles last week, Cooper had a monster day, with 10 catches for 217 yards and three TDs.
Since the Cowboys traded a first-round pick to Oakland for Cooper, they’ve improved from 3-4 to 8-5 and now appear headed to an NFC East championship and the playoffs.
The Raiders, meanwhile, are 3-10.
Davis says if Cooper continues to play like an All-Pro, he and the other leaders of his franchise may kick themselves about letting the wide receiver go. Cooper’s production had declined the past year and a half, and Davis, head coach Jon Gruden and now-departed GM Reggie McKenzie made the decision to unload Cooper for the draft pick.
“In the future, we might be saying, ‘Damn!’ ” Davis told the Morning News. “Because he was a great, great player. We always had the fastest guy on the field no matter what. I think (Al Davis) would have loved Amari, but it just didn’t work out in our system.”
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Which, make you think: Perhaps the Raiders system was flawed, not Cooper. After all, the Raiders also unloaded Khalil Mack this year, too, and he’s a candidate to be the NFL’s Defensive Player of the Year with the Chicago Bears.
While Cooper and Mack roll on, the Raiders, at 3-10, will try to get their fourth win this Sunday in Cincinnati against the Bengals. Kickoff is set for 10 a.m. (Bay Area time).
