Amari Cooper, WR, Alabama

SMDH. SMDH you guys.

Good grief, the Raiders are bad. How bad are they? Okay this is how bad they are. They are 32-64 in the last six seasons, with a -700 point differential. There have been TWELVE starting quarterbacks in that time, and those quarterbacks have thrown 111 touchdowns and 109 interceptions (Drew has 218-95 in that time. Yikes.) Their last 1,000 yard receiver was in 2005. Their last 10 sack defensive player was in 2006.

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This is how bad they are: I moved to America in 2009 and I'm not entirely sure I have ever seen the Raiders win a game. Maybe they beat the Chargers one time? Probably not. They're bad, alright? Real bad. These are their highlights from last season.

And we think we have it bad with a couple of failed end arounds. The Raiders just made this guy their sixth head coach in six years:

Jack Del Rio name literaly means "masterbate into a river" — PFTCommenter (@PFTCommenter) January 19, 2014

Reggie McKenzie is partway through his third year as GM. He inherited a tough job, $35m over the cap in his first year with most of his draft picks traded away. So we'll be lenient in judging the guy. He blew $60m in free agency last year, with 6 of the 11 signed players no longer on the roster. However he did draft Khalil Mack in the 1st round, the best player in the whole draft in this idiot's humble opinion. This has to be seen as a huge improvement over their recent draft history.

How do you mess up that bad? HOW. I swear they are doing this on purpose.

So, uh, things are bad. But we don't look to the past! We beat on, boats against the current, because we're the Raiders. Let's take a look at the roster.

Our best player on offense is a fullback lol, and he had some big time drops last year.

Well, they're thin. Thin like Christian Bale in The Machinist thin. Thin and old at DE, Justin Tuck leading the pack with 5 sacks. There's a bunch of guys I've never heard of at CB along with DJ Hayden. They have nobody at RG. Nobody. They forgot to get a guard. Please tell them that Austin Howard is moving to RT and they have no options at right guard on the roster and it's an emergency. If you're tall and fat and can push some dudes, give Reggie a call and you might make the league minimum $435k.

At WR they have James Jones. Jones is old as dirt in WR terms, which is 9 months older than me, in the prime of my life. Life can be pretty unfair on wide receivers. He had 666 yard last year. Opposite him is Andre Holmes, who actually beat him out and led the team with... 693 yards? Is that right? 693 yards led the team? Oof. The Raiders extended an original round tender to Holmes, so he may walk for nothing in free agency. Walk to Office Depot to start his new job. Damn.

Still, at least the QB spot is starting to get settled! Rookie Derek Carr graded 30th in the league last year, worse than all starters except Blake Bortles. In the 2014 preseason PFF wanted them to start Matt McGloin. Consensus among fans is that Carr cannot be judged by the terrible scheme Greg Olsen had in place and the dearth of talent around him. So we'll give him 2015 at least. What's the worst that could happen.

Honestly y'all, over at Silver & Black Pride, things are so bad that the peak of their excitement is their special teams gunner returning from injury.

So Reggie McKenzie addressed the roster in free agency, as the Raiders are wont to do. They let big name targets DeMarco Murray, Randall Cobb, Ndamukong Suh and Jeremy Maclin slide by, and instead picked up C Rodney Hudson, RB Roy Helu, DT Dan Williams, S Nate Allen, TE Lee Smith and CB James Dockery. Plus they found a backup quarterback with a hot wife, and a superb, top class HOF-caliber middle linebacker in Curtis Tremayne Lofton (RIP).

That's just your average Raiders free agency though, right? Let's hope they're paying full attention to the upcoming draft class to avoid repeating their historical mistakes.

Oh. Okay then. It's up to us!

It looks like their biggest needs are a pass rush, a wide receiver or four, plenty'o cornerbacks and the right side of an offensive line. Nothing too serious. The Raiders board is falling apart right now over whether to take the top pass rusher available or a wide receiver. The argument is boiled down to this depressing post:

"We are a team with poor talent at the vast majority of positions and both sides of the ball need to improve. Really could argue this in circles."

In our draft, the top two defensive players are gone. Fowler or Williams would be great picks for the Raiders. The best available pass rusher left is (in my eyes) Shane Ray of Missouri. I'm not gonna say I know a whole lot about this dude, but I watched a whole lot of SEC! football last year and he seems like a crazy aggressive whirlwind. Watch this and see if you even understand what is going on. Why are they running that way when he threw the ball? Oh, it was a fumble. I get it. I understand this sport completely.









The best wide receiver option at #4 is Amari Cooper. I am ignoring Kevin White here, just because I want to, and you can't do anything about that. Kevin White is probably pretty good, but I heard from some websites that he is not. Websites wouldn't lie.



Amari Cooper is good at catching footballs and running fast. His 40 time was misrecorded as 4.42 when it was actually in the 4.35-4.38 region. Last season with Alabama, Cooper had an SEC record 124 catches for 1,727 yards and 16 touchdowns. I don't know about you, but those are definitely numbers. Lots of people are comparing him to Marvin Harrison, who I hear was pretty good at catching footballs while running fast. I think he'll turn out like Demaryius Thomas or AJ Green, which is to say: good at those things. In this gif he does both of them correctly.









So who should I pick? I don't know. I'm not smart. You don't know either. None of us have any football intellect at all. Website full of dummies, that's what I call it. I figure since they signed a bunch of free agent defensive guys, their defense will be a little less mediocre this season. They can rely on Mack for a great second season. But the Raiders will only go as far as Derek Carr can throw them, and if he only has Rod Streater and uh, who was the other guy? Well it's not gonna be good. Give him Amari Cooper and let the Raiders fans have some nice things to think about while they go 6-10. Next year we'll pick them a different guy. And this fella is their owner.





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