Tim Brown and Jerry Rice are bullish on new Oakland Raiders wide receiver Amari Cooper and with good reason. Cooper, the winner of the Biletnikoff Award as the nation's best collegiate receiver in 2014, entered the 2015 NFL Draft process as a player widely perceived to be the most pro-ready, highest-floor wideout to come into the league in some time. He backed up those expectations by looking very much like the "real deal" from the moment he stepped foot on the Raiders OTA practice fields and has even gone so far as to promise that his rating in the most recent iteration of the Madden video game franchise - a rating that's already the highest for any rookie - will only go higher the longer he remains in the league. In short, Cooper looks, sounds and is expected to be everything the Raiders and head coach Jack Del Rio and GM Reggie McKenzie hoped he would be when they selected him fourth-overall this past April. Still, despite Cooper's quick development and expected impact, it seems another recent Raiders receiver addition is turning the most heads at training camp. Michael Crabtree, the former San Francisco 49ers receiver, has, per Vic Tafur of the San Francisco Chronicle, looked like the early "star" of Oakland's camp.
That isn't to say that Cooper hasn't been keeping up his end of the bargain - per Tafur, the former Alabama standout has been "fine," which is probably a fair assessment for a player whose head is most likely still spinning a bit from the pre-draft process, his selection in the first-round and his recent arrival in Oakland.
Crabtree though, a former first-round pick in his own right, has quite the opportunity ahead of him in Oakland to help shepherd both Cooper and young Raiders quarterback Derek Carr along in their respective developments, and to reassert himself as a top receiver in the NFL.
Crabtree, still just 27, already has six years of NFL experience to his name. While he didn't make an indelible mark on the Niners at the outset of his professional career, he certainly impacted the franchise from Day One, managing 48 receptions for 625 yards and two touchdowns. His receptions and yards increased by the season, culminating in a 2012 in which he recorded a career-high 85 receptions, 1,105-yards and nine touchdowns. Unfortunately, an injury costs him all but five regular season games in 2013 and he seemed to fall out of favor with the San Fran coaching staff thanks to a prickly personality. Crabtree floundered on the open market this offseason before agreeing to join Oakland, though there's no telling how much of that was because of limited interest around the league or because of his asking price.
The 10th-overall pick in the 2009 NFL Draft out of Texas Tech, Crabtree has great size and good athleticism. He's not a burner and he may never become an elite wideout, but as a bigger-bodied guy he could very well become the security blanket for Carr and the possession counterpart to Cooper's explosive ability.
Time will tell if Crabtree is able to reacquire the form that once made him a high first-round pick, but if Tafur's report is to be believed, it sounds like he may already be well on his way.
