Amari Cooper's return to Raiders ends with shocking retirement announcement

HENDERSON, Nev -- Amari Cooper told reporters last week that rejoining the Raiders was a "full-circle moment" he hoped would allow him to finish what he started with the organization after being drafted by the Oakland iteration a decade ago. 

That finish came much sooner than anybody expected, as NFL insider Ian Rapoport reported that Cooper has shockingly informed the team that he plans to retire from the NFL on Thursday.

Cooper reportedly told the Raiders that he no longer has any desire to play. He signed a one-year, $5 million deal with the Raiders just nine days ago after considering offers from various teams while the rest of the league was at training camp and has spent the last week-plus preparing for what everyone thought would be a triumphant return to Raider Nation.

Cooper's acquisition was announced within an hour of news breaking that Raiders' No. 1 wide receiver Jakobi Meyers had requested a trade due to his contract situation, a situation that GM Jon Spytek swore was coincidental. 

With Meyers' situation still unresolved and Cooper now retired from the NFL, the Raiders' already thin receiver room is in limbo just days before they open the season as 2.5-point underdogs against the Patriots in Foxboro. 

Cooper's Career

Cooper's most productive season in the league was in 2020 with Dallas, when he hauled in a career-high 92 receptions for 1,189 yards and five touchdowns. Cooper caught a career-high nine touchdowns with Cleveland in 2022 and recorded a career-high 1,4250 yards on 17.4 yards per catch in 2023. 

Cooper's initial stint with the Raiders from 2015-2018 didn't have the sustained highs many would have hoped for, but he was an integral part of the 2016 team that went 13-3 and is the subject of plenty of nostalgia for Raider Nation, regardless of how it ended. Cooper tallied 1,153 yards and five touchdowns on 83 receptions that season, but he always believed he had unfinished business with the Silver and Black.

"I always kind of (coming back to the Raiders) in the back of my mind," Cooper said. "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. If you draft a guy in the top five, you expect them to come and really help change the organization. I felt like at times, I showed flashes of doing that, but it wasn't to my expectations. This time around, I feel like I have unfinished business."

Cooper also told reporters that he was confident he would be able to get his body back into playing shape, even going as far as saying he would "definitely" be ready for Week 1. Without doing too much speculating, the fact that he never reached that point and retired due to a lack of desire to remain a football player lends credence to the idea that there was quite a way to go for Cooper to get where he truly needed to be to believe he could remain a net-positive NFL receiver.