Believe it or not, Sunday will be the first time since Amari Cooper was traded away by the Raiders that he will face his former team. There was one other chance he had to face off against the team that drafted him No. 4 overall back in 2021, when he was in Dallas but he came down with COVID and missed the game.
Therefore Coop will take the field for the Browns on Sunday, looking at the Silver & Black on the opposite sideline for the first time in his career.
Coop was sent to Dallas midway through the 2018 season in exchange for a first round pick. He played the rest of that season and three more with the Cowboys before being traded to Cleveland. So, it’s been a long road. So long, in fact, the Raiders aren’t even in the same city as when he left.
“I played in the Black Hole,” Cooper told ESPN Cleveland, referring to the Oakland Coliseum. “I’ve never even been to Vegas, so I think it necessarily would feel the same. It won’t because I didn’t play there. It won’t have the same aura to it like a guy coming back to the team that drafted him and coming back to the same place he played at. It doesn’t have that feel.
“And it’s so far removed. It’s what, seven, six years removed from when I departed from the Raiders. Honestly it doesn’t feel like a revenge game or anything like that. I don’t even know any of the players there. None of the guys who are on that team when I was there. I don’t think one guy. So, it doesn’t feel like that. But you never know until you get there, you know what I mean? You never know until you’re on the field. You never know.”
Technically there is one player on the Raiders who was there when Cooper still with the team – Kolton Miller, who was drafted in 2018. And, of course, there will be Mark Davis still roaming the sideline at pregame.
Coop is coming off a career year with 1250 yards receiving, helping him make his first Pro Bowl in four years. It’s his fifth trip to the Pro Bowl, his first two coming in a Raiders uniform.
Yeah, 1250 yards isn’t that impressive when you consider how long Coop has played and how talented he is. His big criticism has always been his lack of fire and passion. Does anything motivate him to take his game to the next level? Will facing the team that drafted him and gave up on him move the needle with him? As Coop said “You never know.”