ITPV » Amari Cooper’s upward career trajectory

ALAMEDA http://www.ravensauthorizedshops.com/authentic-jaylon-ferguson-jersey , Calif. (AP)took a major detour last season when a combination of drops, injuries and overall poor play plagued him all season.After topping 1,000 yards receiving in each of his first two seasons in the NFL for Oakland, Cooper didn’t even reach 700 yards last season in a fall that was emblematic of the Raiders descent from 12 wins in 2016 to just six a year ago.That all contributed to the move to bring Jon Gruden back for a second stint as coach and Gruden made it clear earlier in the offseason that fixing Cooper would be a priority and that he expected him to be a focal point of the offense.”It was cool. Obviously as a receiver, you want to go out there and make plays for your team and win,” Cooper said Tuesday. ”So for him to say that, it really meant a lot to me. I’m just ready to come out here and work and prove that I deserve to have those opportunities.”Cooper was on a star track after being drafted fourth overall by the Raiders in 2015. He had 72 catches for 1,070 yards as a rookie and then 83 receptions for 1,153 yards in year two, becoming the third player to start his career with back-to-back seasons with at least 70 catches and 1,000 yards receiving after Odell Beckham Jr. and Marques Colston.But he took a major step backward last season when he had just 48 catches for 680 yards with nearly one-third of that production (210 yards) coming in a Thursday night win over Kansas City. Cooper had more than 70 yards receiving just one other time all season, when he gained 87 of his 115 yards on a single catch in the season finale.Cooper caught just 50 percent of his 96 targets last season for the third-worst mark in the NFL last season, according to SportRadar.”I wouldn’t say it was great,” Cooper said. ”Definitely some things I need to work on coming into this year and some things that I have been working on so that I can be better on for this season.”Holding onto the ball will be a big key. He dropped three passes in the opener and five in the first four weeks, according to SportRadar, to get his season off on the wrong track. He reduced those as the season went on, but was unable to perform consistently as the Raiders offense struggled as a whole with Derek Carr at quarterback.But drops have been a recurring problem for Cooper in his career with his 30 dropped passes since entering the league in 2015 ranking worst in the NFL. The Raiders have 135 as a team in that span, also ranking last in the league and a priority for Gruden to fix.”Sometimes the quarterback throws the ball in there early. Maybe he didn’t take the proper drop. Sometimes the receiver might lack concentration. There’s a lot of reasons. You have to catch the football,” Gruden said.”We have to catch the ball better. We have to improve. Our receivers have to rise up, play better than they’ve ever played. We’ve made changes there in this core and they have to obviously take the torch and run with it.”Cooper is part of an offense that should maximize his talent this year. In 11 years as a coach, Gruden had a 1 Miles Boykin Jersey ,000-yard receiver every season, including two in 2001. The Raiders also bolstered their receiving group by signing Jordy Nelson to replace the departed Michael Crabtree and adding a deep threat in Martavis Bryant, whose game-breaking speed should create more opportunities underneath.Having two talented receivers by his side also should allow Cooper more opportunities to play from the slot, where his deft footwork and route running should make him a difficult matchup.”We have a whole lot of plays even right now this early,” Cooper said. ”We have something for everything. Every defensive look, we can audible to something to get in the right play for any defense.”NOTES: The Raiders traded a conditional seventh-round pick to the New York Jets for quarterback Christian Hackenberg, a second-round pick in 2016 who has never taken a snap in the NFL. … Edge rusher Khalil Mack remains out of the voluntary offseason program while seeking a long-term contract. … S Obi Melifonwu, a second-round pick in 2017, remains sidelined by a hip injury and Gruden said he’s not close to returning. ”I haven’t seen much of Obi except in the training room,” Gruden said.— Visceral blowback to the NFL’s updated rule that players can’t lead with their helmets to make contact is straight out of tough-guy football 101. Hard-hitting defensive backs say the league is destroying the physical element of the game or lament that it’s changing the sport entirely.“Do they want us to play flag football?” Dolphins cornerback Xavien Howard said. “It’s crazy.”Beyond the criticism from old-school players bristling at another rule change or point of emphasis is legitimate confusion as to how the enhanced regulations will actually be enforced. No longer can a player initiate contact with his head anywhere on an opponent’s body, penalized 15 yards or possibly by ejection in egregious cases, and players and coaches — offensive guys, too — are bracing for how it will be applied.“You just hope it’s not called as frequently, because if they are going to call it on every single offensive and defensive lineman, the game is going to be played at a snail’s pace,” 49ers cornerback Richard Sherman said. “It seems like they are neglecting the impact it is going to have on the game, and I don’t think they fully understand the scope and how huge it will be.”Contact to a player’s head and neck has been a penalty for some time now, but this rule was ramped up to take it a step further. A ball carrier or an offensive lineman can’t lower his head into a defender, and a defensive player can’t make any part of his helmet the primary point of contact when attempting to tackle.It’s similar to the NCAA rule that has been in place since 2013, though at the college level, “targeting” carries an automatic ejection http://www.packerscheapshoponline.com/cheap-authentic-darnell-savage-jr.-jersey , reviewable by replay. The league estimated that just two plays last season would’ve led to an ejection under the new rule that’s forcing players to adjust their approaches.“It’s really hard to change the way you’ve been playing after 20 years,” Cowboys safety Jeff Heath said. “You’re not always thinking about where you’re hitting somebody. You’re just trying to get them down. As soon as you start thinking, and second-guessing yourself, I think that’s when trouble happens. Hopefully it does the job in keeping players safe but doesn’t result in a lot of ejections.”As the NFL alters this rule and another to kickoffs in the name of safety, some players are willing to accept the reasons for changes. Denver’s three-time All-Pro linebacker Von Miller said, “They’ve put in rules to take care of all the players, as well, so I’m good with all the rule changes.”Seahawks coach Pete Carroll said he used to fight the evolution of football “like an old dog,” but has come to accept changes in the name of doing the right thing for players. He expects there to be a wide application of the enhanced helmet rule and doesn’t consider it such a bad thing.“I think it’s across the board because it can happen multiple times on any play, where guys use the top of their helmet,” Carroll said. “We’re just getting out of it. It’s really about going back to really good shoulder-leverage play.”That’s how Josh Norman feels about it. The Washington Redskins cornerback knows he has accidentally made helmet contact with opponents, but as a player not known for those plays considers this a reminder about sound fundamentals.“Head up, bowed neck, tackle with your facemask,” Norman said. “It’s not with the crown of your head. Obviously injuries come. People get paralyzed like that. Nobody should play like that.”To get the message across, coaches Anthony Lynn of the Chargers, Doug Marrone of the Jaguars, Dan Quinn of the Falcons, Mike Vrabel of the Titans and Todd Bowles of the Jets each narrated a clip-by-clip video illustrating how the enhanced rule affects a different position group: running backs , offensive linemen , defensive linemen http://www.ravensauthorizedshops.com/authentic-justice-hill-jersey , linebackers and defensive backs . Hall of Fame running back Curtis Martin and linebackers Willie Lanier , also a Hall of Famer, and Willie McGinest taped minute-long videos explaining to players the importance of stance posture and technique to avoid unnecessary head contact.In the first test of the heightened emphasis on head contact, Baltimore linebackers Patrick Onwuasor and Kamalei Correa were each flagged for 15-yard penalties in the Hall of Fame game that opened the preseason. Watching that gave Denver coach Vance Joseph a glimpse of what effect the helmet rule will have, pointing out it’s not just on players to adjust.“Coaching that part, in my opinion, is going to be the tough part — not the defenders,” Joseph said. “That’s been taught and that’s been coached for a long time, with the offensive guys using their stiff arm and putting the ball in the proper hand, using their shoulders versus their head. It’s going to take teaching.”It’s going to take some trial and error in games for players and officials to realize how it will actually be called. Veteran Bills linebacker Lorenzo Alexander figures it could happen somewhere on the field on any play, so he and his teammates will try to toe the line between watching out for it and not thinking so much that it proves costly.“You can’t really change your mindset,” Buffalo safety Micah Hyde said. “That’s when you start playing passive, and you start giving up stuff. I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to explain, it’s kind of when your ankle’s hurt, you tape it, you’re thinking about it, and then you might hurt something else. It’s the same along those lines, you can’t really think about it: Just go out there and play football.”