OAKLAND (vs LA Rams)
Jon Gruden is coaching his first opener in 10 years, and there's an uneasy sense the game may have passed him by. His personnel moves ...
...have been curious at best -- trading away a third-rounder for troubled Martavis Bryant and giving away their franchise defensive player for a pair for first-round picks. Gruden opens at home on a national stage, but the opponent is problematic. The Rams will score plenty of points, putting pressure on Oakland's offense to keep pace, and ...
This report is taken from today's Week 1 edition of Fantasy Index Weekly. The newsletter includes our player rankings and 20 pages of matchup previews, plus stat projections and custom rankings for the games being played this weekend.
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... Los Angeles might have a top-5 defense. ... We identified Amari Cooper as a key player early in the offseason, with Jon Gruden's long history of building his offense around getting the ball into the hands of his featured receiver. But this is a notoriously difficult opener. The Rams in the offseason traded for a pair of aggressive cover corners, Marcus Peters and Aqib Talib, and those guys have the potential to give Cooper fits. Those guys both came over from the AFC West, so they've been seeing Cooper twice per year. Not they've always been assigned to cover him, but Cooper historically has played his worst ball against Kansas City and Denver.
| Cooper vs. K.C./Den. | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Year | Opp. | No | Yards | TD |
| '15 | Den. | 4 | 47 | 0 |
| '15 | K.C. | 4 | 69 | 0 |
| '15 | at Den. | 0 | 0 | 0 |
| '15 | at K.C. | 2 | 20 | 0 |
| '16 | K.C. | 10 | 129 | 0 |
| '16 | Den. | 6 | 56 | 0 |
| '16 | at K.C. | 5 | 29 | 0 |
| '16 | at Den. | 4 | 39 | 1 |
| '17 | at Den. | 2 | 9 | 0 |
| '17 | K.C. | 11 | 210 | 2 |
| '17 | Den. | 1 | 9 | 1 |
| '17 | at K.C. | 0 | 0 | 0 |
He hasn't scored in 75 percent of those games. In half of those contests, he's been held under 30 yards, which hardly seems possible. He busted out in a big way against Kansas City last year, of course, but Peters wasn't on him much at all in that game. Those are different years, of course, and Cooper is in a different offense playing against a different defense. Cooper is talented enough that you don't bench him in favor of a pedestrian receiver in a more favorable situation. But we're ranking Cooper lower than usual. And it makes sense to downgrade Jordy Nelson even further. Nelson is 33 and doesn't have much speed anymore (the Packers released him). Whichever one of these cornerbacks isn't covering Cooper should be all over Nelson. ... With the matchup issues with the starting wide receivers, this should be a week where the supplementary pass catchers are busier than usual. But the Raiders don't have anyone else who seems to bring much to the table. Jared Cook is a modest talent -- above-average speed for a tight end, but he's not much of a route-runner and doesn't tend to come up with contested balls. Seth Roberts, Brandon LaFell, Johnny Holton and Keon Hatcher wouldn't have made the 53-man rosters of a lot of teams. ... Derek Carr was one of the first 20 quarterbacks drafted in most leagues. Jon Gruden and Greg Olson are making some tweaks to the offense, and maybe it all takes and Carr makes a run at top-10 numbers. But best to keep him on ice for now. Hardly playing, Carr didn't do anything in the preseason to confirm he's headed for any kind of breakout-type season, and this is a difficult opponent. The Rams have one of the best pass rushes, so they should have some success disrupting his timing, and they've got those sticky cover corners on Oakland's wide receivers. Carr won't help his cause by running. ... The plan for Oakland likely will be to run the ball with Marshawn Lynch. That might sounds ridiculous, with the Rams having one of the most heralded pairs of defensive tackles in NFL history -- Aaron Donald and Ndamukong Suh -- but Wade Phillips tends to design his defense around getting to the quarterback. They'll cut some corners in regards to playing the run. Two years in a row, in fact, his defenses have ranked 28th in run defense (that includes his final season in Denver). So the plan could be to rely more on slugging things out on the ground. Lynch is 32, but he's fresh right now. He touched the ball only once in the preseason, but it went for a 60-yard touchdown (negated by a penalty). Lynch tied for the league lead in rushing in the second half of last season. Just hope that the Rams don't put up 3 TDs in a hurry, removing Lynch from the game. Doug Martin probably will be worked in for a few carries. If and when the Raiders have to start passing more often, they'll rely more on their third-down type backs, DeAndre Washington and Jalen Richard. ... The Raiders are going with Mike Nugent as their kicker, and that's a head scratcher. He's been struggling with accuracy for years. In the last five years, 33 kickers have attempted at least 70 field goals; only four have been less accurate. ... The Raiders Defense should be one of the worst in the league, and it's got a particularly difficult matchup this week. The Rams do a good job at keeping Jared Goff out of difficult situations. In 15 starts last year, he took only 25 sacks and threw only 7 interceptions.