Raiders Made Rare Smart Choice with Amari Cooper at Top of 1st Round

These aren’t your momma’s Oakland Raiders.

After years of wasting their first-round draft picks on athletes instead of football players, the Raiders made the rare smart choice by selecting Alabama wide receiver Amari Cooper fourth overall. It’s the second year in a row general manager Reggie McKenzie has made a pick fans can get behind, and like last year’s No. 5 overall pick Khalil Mack, Cooper is equal parts athlete and football player.

The Raiders could have screwed up the pick as they have so many times in the past. They have selected a slew of busts at the top of the first round like Rolando McClain, Darrius Heyward-Bey and JaMarcus Russell and had others such as Darren McFadden, Michael Huff and Robert Gallery disappoint.

In Cooper, the Raiders have a prospect who should become their No. 1 wide receiver right away. The Raiders haven’t had a No. 1 receiver since an unmotivated Randy Moss had 1,000 receiving yards in 2005. Not since they had Hall of Famers Tim Brown and Jerry Rice over a decade ago was it a player the fans could really get behind.

The temptation was there for the Raiders to take USC defensive lineman Leonard Williams or a pass-rusher like Clemson’s Vic Beasley, but the Raiders couldn’t go wrong with a polished player like Cooper. That’s especially true because Cooper can have a direct impact on second-year quarterback Derek Carr, who needs to improve to become the quarterback the organization and the fans think he can be.

The Raiders will only go as far as Carr takes them in 2015, so it made a lot of sense for the Raiders to give him immediate help. The Raiders also added Michael Crabtree in free agency and will get Rod Streater back from injury, so a weakness from a year ago could become a strength in 2015. The team’s top receivers from last season—James Jones and Andre Holmes—project as the team’s No. 4 and No. 5 receivers going forward.

Cooper is also a perfect fit in new offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave’s offense. To buoy Carr’s yards per attempt, Cooper should create yards after the catch with ease in Musgrave’s offense.

In Musgrave’s last job calling plays with the Minnesota Vikings, he managed to milk production out of Percy Harvin, Greg Jennings and Cordarrelle Patterson as few others have been able to do since. Cooper runs routes like Jennings and is explosive like Harvin and Patterson, so he’ll find ways to get open on all three levels of a defense. Cooper, like Harvin in Musgrave’s offense, even lined up the backfield at times during his college career.

Cooper also makes Streater and Crabtree better by drawing the coverage of the opposing team’s best cornerback. The Raiders can now move receivers around to exploit matchups against teams that don’t flip their cornerbacks, forcing safeties and linebackers to get more involved in coverage.

An improved passing game also helps the running game, which was one of the league’s worst last season. The Raiders can now spread things out and hope that running backs Latavius Murray and Trent Richardson can run against soft boxes.

Unlike a player like Williams, who needs some work to reach his massive potential, Cooper doesn’t need a whole lot of development to be the player the Raiders hope he can be. Some have actually wondered just how much better Cooper can get because he’s already such a polished player.

“There are only two ways you can get open at wide receiver, your releases and the top of your route,” Cooper said via conference call. “The whole route-running process is really important. I just focused on it and try to be the best that I can at it so I can create as much separation I can for my quarterback.”

Despite possessing rare polish for a college receiver, Cooper can get better. He uses several different releases and route stems to get open, but he can still add more of them to his repertoire. He can also drop fewer passes and do a better job physically winning the battle for contested passes.

Cooper is extremely confident in his abilities, but he knows that he can be even better because there are small areas where he can still improve. Cooper even elaborated in the conference call on where he thinks he can get better:

"

Just being consistent in my performance. Looking the ball all the way through every single time, so that I can catch the ball as many times as it’s thrown to me. High-pointing the ball every time. Just the small things to make me a better player.

"

Cooper might need to get better at some small things, but there’s little doubt that this was a very big pick for the future of the Raiders. With the addition of Cooper, the Raiders might finally be ready to leave their losing ways in the past.