The Las Vegas Raiders will kick off their 2025 season on Sunday against the New England Patriots without wide receiver Amari Cooper. The former Alabama All-American signed a one-year contract with the Raiders on Aug. 26. But he has informed the NFL team that he plans to retire, NFL Network and ESPN reported on Thursday afternoon.
Cooper is coming off the least productive of his 10 NFL seasons. He had 44 receptions for 547 yards and four touchdowns with two teams in 2024. The Cleveland Browns traded Cooper to the Buffalo Bills six games into the 2024 campaign. In addition to eight regular-season games for Buffalo, Cooper had six receptions for 41 yards in three playoff games with the Bills.
Cooper became an unrestricted free agent on March 12 and was out of football for more than five months before signing with the Raiders after Las Vegas’ preseason schedule had ended.
The Raiders’ depth chart for this week listed Cooper as a second-team receiver behind Jakobi Meyers, Las Vegas’ top wide receiver in 2024.
If Cooper is finished with football, he totaled 711 receptions for 10,033 yards with 64 touchdowns in 154 regular-season games. In NFL history, Cooper ranks 59th in receptions, 57th in receiving yards and 74th in touchdown receptions.
Among Alabama alumni, Cooper ranks second to Julio Jones in NFL receptions and receiving yards and third behind Don Hutson and Jones in NFL touchdown receptions.
Cooper entered the NFL as the fourth pick in the 2015 draft after he had set an SEC single-season record with 124 receptions for the Crimson Tide in 2014.
In his first two seasons with Oakland, Cooper had 155 receptions for 2,223 yards and 11 touchdowns and went to the Pro Bowl after each. But when Cooper’s production dropped to 48 receptions for 680 yards and seven touchdowns in 2017 and he started 2018 with 22 receptions for 280 yards and one touchdown in six games, the Raiders traded the wide receiver to the Dallas Cowboys for a first-round pick in the 2019 NFL Draft.
Cooper went on to add Pro Bowl selections in 2018, 2019 and 2023 and 1,000-yard receiving seasons in 2018, 2019, 2020, 2022 and 2023 to those of his first two years in the league.
On March 11, 2022, the Cowboys traded Cooper and a sixth-round pick in the 2022 NFL Draft to the Browns for fifth- and sixth-round picks in 2022.
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Mark Inabinett is a sports reporter for Alabama Media Group. Follow him on X at@AMarkG1.
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