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Heading into the season, Fantasy Football Expert Frankie Soler will take an early look into each NFL team’s fantasy potential in 2015, keying into some depth chart changes and battles for starting jobs. In our third part of the series we look at the Dallas Cowboys. All previous Team Previews can be found here.
Despite being on the receiving end of countless jokes over the years, the Oakland Raiders have managed to put together an interesting off-season. The team added a star wide receiver in Amari Cooper through the draft and shuffled around it's depth chart with some other free agent acquisitions.
We might actually have ourselves a more bright perception of the Raider offense than we’ve been used to in years past.
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Offseason Acquisitions: WR Michael Crabtree, RB Trent Richardson, RB Roy Helu
No Longer on the Roster: RB Darren McFadden, RB Maurice Jones-Drew, WR Denarius Moore
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Quarterback
The Oakland Raiders will open the 2015 season with second year quarterback Derek Carr under center. Although Carr is currently dealing with a right hand injury, the setback isn’t something that’s expected to bleed into the regular season. Carr was serviceable in his rookie campaign with 21 touchdowns and 3,270 yards, putting him in the middle of the pack among quarterbacks for the year. No one is expecting some overwhelming breakout for Carr but that doesn’t mean his numbers won’t improve. Perhaps the safest expectation would be for his completion percentage to rise a bit. Carr finished 2014 having completed just 58.1% of his passes, only three players finished with a lower percentage among qualified quarterbacks. That’s an area Carr should improve upon in the coming season. He might not possess any sort of fantasy value in his own right but the important thing to remember is that Carr is a competent enough QB to get the ball to the next player we’re about to discuss, Amari Cooper.
Wide Receivers
To say the Oakland Raiders have utilized a wide receiver carousel would be an understatement. I would list the various receivers that have come through Oakland over the past few years but I’m sure both you and I have better things to do. Fortunately, the Raiders netted the top wide receiver prospect in the draft, selecting Amari Cooper at number four overall. Cooper is expected to be a stellar pass catcher who should be able to create plays on his own independent of quarterback play. It certainly helps that Carr is indeed a decent enough QB to get him the ball so it could certainly be worse for Cooper. Most fantasy rankers have Cooper as a borderline WR2 and I think that's a fair ranking. Like with all rookies, the best approach is cautious optimism. Cooper should be a flex play at worst this year and possesses extremely high upside. If he were on a team with a potent offense we’d be talking about him as a borderline WR1 as opposed to a WR2. Cooper will sit atop the depth chart immediately which begs the question, what about Michael Crabtree?
In short, Crabtree has floundered enough over the past two seasons due to both injury and performance that you really can’t hold out any sort of hope he’ll suddenly turn it around in Oakland. Crabtree finished 2014 with just 698 yards and four touchdowns on a San Francisco team that has a better quarterback in Colin Kaepernick. The Oakland offense isn’t one that can sustain two viable wide receiver options for fantasy purposes so Crabtree is just a name at this point in his career. The Raiders did finish fourth in passing attempts last year with 629 but 26th in passing yards with 3,275. The attempts can be attributed to the team playing in catch-up mode more often than not while the low yardage total shows you that the offense just isn’t that efficient. Expect Cooper to be the only useful pass catcher for the Raiders this year even with the addition of Crabtree.
Running Backs
There have been some seriously stubborn franchises in the past when it comes to refusing to give the ball to the best option at running back. Atop of the list of those franchises has to be the Oakland Raiders. In a season where the team won just three games you would think they would want to at least give Latavius Murray a shot prior to week 12. Instead, the team kept trotting out Maurice Jones-Drew and Darren McFadden in an act of stubbornness. Both MJD and McFadden proved to be ineffective, allowing Latavius Murray to bust out for 112 yards in a week 12 matchup against the Chiefs. The most amazing part about that performance is that he racked up that yardage on just four rushing attempts. Murray was given the starting gig after that and owners began pondering his value for the following season.
Then the Raiders go and make a mess of things by bringing in both Trent Richardson and Roy Helu. It’s possible that Murray is simply one of those flash in the pan players who fades out the following season but it’s not like we’re talking about some top-notch competition here. Richardson has been absolutely brutal since his rookie season in Cleveland. The Indianapolis experiment didn’t work out whatsoever and it made the Browns look like geniuses for swinging that trade. If anything, Richardson is in the worst scenario of his career and he hasn’t even come close to showing us the playmaking ability he had his rookie season. Roy Helu is an interesting name given his vulture-like tendencies in Washington while playing alongside Alfred Morris and his value as a pass catching and third down running back. I’m sure we’ll have to go an entire off-season about how it’s an “open competition” for the starting gig but I really don’t see any way Murray loses this battle. In my mind, the absolute worst case scenario for Murray is that he ends up as a poor man’s Alfred Morris with Roy Helu stealing the pass catching work. I would ignore Richardson entirely barring some miraculous turnaround. Murray is the running back to target in Oakland based on opportunity and weak competition at the position. Don’t expect numbers like his 112-yard game against Kansas City every week but he’s absolutely worth his value as a mid-to-low end RB2.
Rookies and Tight Ends
Amari Cooper is the only name you need to worry about for this section. Nothing else to see here, kids.
The addition of Amari Cooper should bolster the Raiders offense especially as Derek Carr continues to grow. Michael Crabtree is fine as a real-life number two receiver with Denarius Moore headed to Cincinnati but not much beyond that. The running back battle is one to keep an eye on as the off-season progresses despite it being Latavius Murray’s job to lose. I’d be shocked at any other result. Hopefully the Raiders aren’t as stubborn as they usually are and actually decide to utilize the playmakers they have on their roster this year.
