Former Alabama wide receiver Amari Cooper is set to begin his second full season with the Dallas Cowboys after being traded by Oakland in 2018. Playing in Dallas was seemingly a career-saving change for Cooper, and he’s apparently just getting started.
When speaking with DallasCowboys.com’s David Helman, Cooper revealed goals for himself and the team for the 2020 season.
Cooper, who shares the field with fellow high-profile receiver Michael Gallup, had high praise for Dallas’ 2020 first-round draftee, former Oklahoma wide receiver CeeDee Lamb.
While speaking about Lamb, Cooper revealed a difficult, but achievable goal: Having three wide receivers finish the year with over 1,000 yards.
“You have to draft the best player on the board — everybody understands that,” Cooper said. “I think he’s a great receiver. And I think with me and Michael Gallup going for 1,000 yards last season, I think the expectation is to have three 1,000-yard receivers this year.”
Last year, Cooper and Gallup both caught for over 1,000 yards. In fact, that is not a benchmark the former Alabama star often misses. In his five NFL seasons, four were concluded with over 1,000 receiving yards.
Though it isn’t something new to Cooper, he acknowledges that he still has to take the time during the offseason to train.
In an attempt to perfect his craft, Cooper states that he and his fellow skill position teammates have been working for months, despite league facilities having been closed for the past few months due to the ongoing Coronavirus pandemic.
“Me, Dak, some of the other receivers, tight ends, running backs – we’ve all been working together pretty consistently for months now,” said Cooper. “Working on our route running, working on the offense and everything like that. We’ve been getting a lot of work in, getting that timing right as if we were going to minicamp or OTAs.”
Cooper and the Cowboys will enter the 2020 season with a new head coach, Mike McCarthy, who coached the Green Bay Packers from 2006-2018 and won a Super Bowl during his time there.