Raiders getting Connor Cook ready for Texans
ALAMEDA - After the day's stretching was done Thursday, the Raiders players splintered into position groups and gravitated to various corners of the practice field here at team headquarters. The quarterbacks and receivers moved together to one isolated spot for some routes “on air” (that is, with no defenders present). And it was Connor Cook, wearing a red No. 8 shell, who dropped back and made the first throw.
It was a subtle marker, but it represented a huge shift in the pecking order. For better or worse, Cook is being asked do what no quarterback in the past 50 years has attempted - to make his first NFL start in a postseason game - when the Raiders face the Texans in an AFC wild-card game at Houston on Saturday.
“I think there's a lot of unknown there, right?” Oakland head coach Jack Del Rio said Wednesday. “I think we'll get to watch it play out. Let's see him play. Honestly, we haven't seen him a lot. We saw half a game, or thereabouts, against Denver last week. That was pretty good. That part was pretty good. Small sample, pretty good.”
A larger sample size is likely to come Saturday, and the implications for the Raiders are significant. This is their first playoff appearance since 2002. It will either end abruptly in Houston or extend for at least another week, and the rookie quarterback's performance will have a large bearing on the outcome.
At the risk of contradicting Del Rio, last week's small sample was mixed. True, Cook moved the ball better than Matt McGloin, who started the game in the absence of franchise QB Derek Carr but left with a (non-throwing) shoulder injury in the second quarter.
“He was real mature,” tight end Clive Walford said of Cook, who hadn't so much as suited up for an NFL game before last Sunday. “He came in the huddle very confident and seemed like he knew what he was doing. That made us have more confidence in him.”
But Cook, 23, also fumbled twice and threw an interception, and the Raiders lost 24-6, losing their grip on the AFC West title and forfeiting a playoff bye.
This week, Del Rio and his assistants are emphasizing that it takes a village to play football, and that the Raiders' fortunes in Houston will not begin and end with one player. But they know the truth. It will be hard for this team to survive into Round 2 if Connor Cook plays poorly. That's why much of the brainpower this week has been devoted to one specific task: getting the rookie up to speed.
“We've had a good week,” offensive coordinator Bill Musgrave said Thursday. “It's been condensed. Had a good day today and we're looking forward to having more preparation, of course, once we get down there tomorrow and even the day of the game.”
Certainly, the Raiders believe they have a lot to work with in Cook.
They drafted him with the second pick in the fourth round last April, and the traits that attracted the team then are the ones that give them hope now. Among those are Cook's physical parameters. He's 6-foot-4, 217 pounds, and the deep throw has never been a problem for him.
“He's a big and tall quarterback,” wide receiver Andre Holmes said. “It's gonna be easy to see him. He has a good arm, has good arm strength. And he wants to win.”
Another strength the Raiders are hoping to lean on this week is Cook's big-game experience. His second appearance at Michigan State as a freshman came in the 2012 Buffalo Wild Wings Bowl, where he came on in relief and helped lead the Spartans to a win against TCU. Along the way to setting most of the career passing records at MSU, he was a two-time MVP of the Big Ten championship game, offensive MVP of the 2014 Rose Bowl (a victory against Stanford) and a winner against Baylor in the 2015 Cotton Bowl.
On the other hand, when the Spartans were selected to play mighty Alabama in a College Football Playoff semifinal last year, they were thumped 38-0. Cook completed fewer than 50 percent of his passes (19 for 39) and threw two interceptions.
There were also whispers about his leadership coming out of college.
A post-draft story in the Detroit News said this: “Teams view Cook as arrogant, a player whose personality flaws could be an issue in a locker room full of alpha males.”
He was not voted team captain as a senior at Michigan State, a slight that some NFL teams viewed as a red flag.
This week, Raiders quarterbacks coach Todd Downing, who graduated from the University of Minnesota, said he had reached out to Big Ten contacts before the draft, and got nothing but positive reviews of Cook.
“A ‘C' on your chest doesn't define a leader,” Downing said. “The reputation you carry, your character, the way you work, that's what makes a leader, and I think unequivocally people said he was a good leader and a good teammate. … I bet you there are guys in this locker room right now that would call themselves leaders on this team, and they aren't one of our captains.”
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