HENDERSON, Nev. -- The Las Vegas Raiders' initial 53-man roster was revealed on Wednesday, but it hasn't come without a few surprise shakeups and additions in the following hours. Beyond the trials of hammering down a viable NFL roster before next weekend's season opener, the Raiders are also now dealing with a trade request, as first-string wide receiver Jakobi Meyers has requested to be moved after no progress was made ahead of the final year of his deal.
Meyers is still currently practicing with the team, indicating that his trade request may be more about pressuring the Raiders to take these negotiations more seriously than it is an actual desire to be moved from the organization. Raiders GM Jon Spytek addressed the media on Wednesday, addressing the situation with their top wideout as well as a few other additions the team has made so far this week.
"Jakobi is a consummate professional," Spytek said. "Jakobi and I have had a lot of great conversations since I've gotten here about many different things. I'm excited that he's here, and he's a Raider, and he's out on the field working hard today, and I've not seen him do anything but that since I've been here. He's a professional. I think he really values being a Raider. He has a lot of respect for this game, and I think he only knows how to go about it one way, which is to give his best when he's out there."
Out With The Old, In With The Old?
In what Spytek swore was an unintentional coincidence, within hours after Meyers' trade request went public, the Raiders announced the signing of veteran wide receiver Amari Cooper, who spent the first three and a half years of his career with the Silver and Black from 2015-2018.
"It may not look like that, but it was absolutely coincidence," Spytek said. "We had been talking to Amari for a while, just making sure it was the right fit and we can work the right contract out.
"He played good football for a team that went to the AFC Championship last year. His ability to make unique catches is something that's always stood out to me. Whether or not you're the fastest guy in the world or you're not the fastest guy in the world, you're going to have to make contested catches at this level. And he's always been able to do that, and he had many of those last year."
After spending parts of the last seven seasons with Cleveland, Dallas and Buffalo, Cooper finds motivation in beginning his career where it began. With one of the most iconic franchises in all of professional sports.
"It's a good feeling," Cooper said. "It feels like a full-circle moment. So I'm excited about the opportunity for sure and I'm ready to embrace it ... I always kind of had that in the back of my mind because when I was drafted here, I felt like the expectations were high. I felt like I did okay but always knew why I was drafted. You draft a guy top five, you expect them to come and really help change the organization. And I felt like at times, I showed flashes of doing that, but it wasn't to my expectations. So, like I said, this time around, I feel like I have unfinished business."
Back To Backup
Kenny Pickett was favored to win the Cleveland Browns' starting quarterback job over Joe Flacco, Dillon Gabriel, and Shedeur Sanders this summer, but an untimely injury in camp forced him to cede way in the competition. After Raiders' backup Aidan O'Connell broke his wrist in Saturday's preseason finale against Arizona, the Las Vegas Raiders decided to free Pickett from Cleveland's quarterback purgatory in exchange for a fifth-round pick.
According to Spytek, it was Pickett's similarities to starting quarterback Geno Smith that made him such an enticing target for the team once O'Connell went down.
"He's a good athlete," Spytek said. "He's not too dissimilar from Geno in a lot of ways in the way he can move and the offense that we want to run. I think sometimes you can get two different types of quarterbacks, and it becomes a big challenge for the offense coordinator, for Chip [Kelly], to kind of match those two up and have the backup quarterback ready to go, should something happen in the middle of a game. But with Kenny [Pickett] and the way he kind of mirrors Geno in a lot of ways, that just makes it a little bit easier in what is already a very hard job."