Wondering what to expect going forward. Was burnt last year by Amari, went back to the well again this year, believing in Gruden's "we will feed him the ball" crap. I noticed one thing in "on the couch" last week and that was the assumption that Cooper had the most success out of the slot. Was wondering where he mostly lined up in his two first seasons where he produced 1000 yards seasons (I don't watch the Raiders much). I remember last year he had most of his success when they would be more creative with him (in motion, working out of the slot, instead of just lining him up outside where he would often face bump coverage disrupting his routes).
I took a look at PFF (
https://www.pro-football-reference.com/players/C/CoopAm00.htm) but did not see any stats on this. I did notice however that he was targeted much less last season compared to his first two seasons and that his catch percentage was at an all-time low at 50%.
This season he's had his best catch percentage of his career (68%) which does give some hope for optimism (depends on whether Dak throws catchable balls I guess) assuming he will see an uptick in targets as well.
It seems most likely that Dallas will line him up outside and not in the slot (Beasley seems pretty locked in at that spot) which is a concern. Have no idea how creative they intend to be in their playcalling but this is Ezekiel's team so low volume for passing is probably expected. On that note Dez Bryant had 132 targets last year, if they intend to feed Amari like they did Dez, owners should be very happy.