Amari Cooper, freed from Jon Gruden's Raiders, scores in first quarter of Cowboys debut

Maybe all Amari Cooper needed to revive his career was to escape the Oakland Raiders.

When the Dallas Cowboys traded a first-round pick for Cooper, it was curious. Cooper had been mostly unproductive the past two seasons. Maybe that was a product of his environment.

The early, early returns on the trade were good for Dallas. On Dallas’ first drive, Cooper had a nice route to get open for an 11-yard gain. Then on the Cowboys’ second drive Cooper turned Tennessee Titans cornerback Malcolm Butler around on another nice route and scored his first Cowboys touchdown.

It was Cooper’s first first-quarter touchdown in his last 14 games, ESPN said. Dak Prescott tried getting Cooper a second touchdown in the first quarter, but his pass to Cooper in double coverage was picked off by Kevin Byard in the end zone.

Amari Cooper looked good to start Monday’s game

Cooper’s last two seasons were strange. He had a great draft pedigree, as the fourth pick of the draft, and two 1,000-yard seasons to start his career. He’s just 24 years old. He had dealt with some injuries, but none of that would explain him getting just 680 yards last season and posting four games of 17 yards or less this season.

He looked pretty good to start the game on Monday night. He was running sharp routes, including the one that got him into the end zone. That came a few days after the Raiders offense looked absolutely horrendous in a 34-3 loss to the San Francisco 49ers.

A couple of ex-Raiders, Khalil Mack and Bruce Irvin, noticed their old teammate’s touchdown.

The Cowboys gambled on Cooper’s talent

The Cowboys’ gamble was expensive, but you can see whey they’d talk themselves into it. As owner Jerry Jones explained before the game to ESPN, they viewed it as a long-term investment because he felt the receiver the Cowboys would get in the first round was unlikely to have the same potential impact of Cooper. It was also a short-term investment for an offense that had nothing resembling a No. 1 receiver.

Maybe Cooper can be that player for the Cowboys, or maybe he looks like he did most of his last two seasons with the Raiders. It was worth it to Dallas to see if getting out of Oakland would turn Cooper’s career back around.

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Frank Schwab is a writer for Yahoo Sports. Have a tip? Email him at shutdown.corner@yahoo.com or follow him on Twitter!
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