In star turn with Cowboys, Amari Cooper is answering every question he faced at end of Raiders tenure

FRISCO, Texas – Mad? Glad? Sad?

Amari Cooper can be so hard to read, which just might explain whispers on the NFL grapevine several weeks ago – when the Oakland Raiders shipped him to the Dallas Cowboys for a first-round pick – that questioned whether the star receiver truly loved football.

“It’s really stupid, to be honest,” Cooper, 24, told USA TODAY Sports of that theory as he sat at his locker this week. He mentioned the training and practices going back to his start in organized football. “That’s 17 years. You know what I’m saying? You’ve got to love the game to do that.”

Perceptions can be so tricky – and sometimes so wrong.

Cooper is undoubtedly finding bliss as the missing link for a team that carries the NFL’s longest winning streak at five games heading into Sunday’s matchup at Indianapolis. In earning his second NFC offensive player of the week award in three weeks after recording 217 receiving yards and three TDs against the Eagles, he looks so revitalized. Dak Prescott is rejuvenated, too, with the ripple effect of an NFL-best 75.1% completion rate during the winning streak. Cooper leads the NFL in several categories, including receiving yards with 642, since his Cowboys debut in Week 9.

That’s a whole lot of passion. Then again, as he was mired in the Raiders funk, it might have been easy to assume that his joy for the game waned – maybe to the point of justifying the trade.

“I know exactly what it is,” Cooper said. “It wasn’t that I didn’t love football or love being with the Raiders. Both are untrue. I think it’s just my demeanor. That can be misleading to people sometimes, when you don’t have many different facial expressions as people like to say about me. They’re not able to know if I’m excited, or happy, or whatever.”

In a league in which more than a few big-ticket receivers over the years have put their emotions on constant display, Cooper is the anti-eccentric. That can’t be bad for chemistry.

“He’s not one of those flamboyant, in-your-face receivers who is screaming on the sideline when you don’t throw him the ball,” Stephen Jones, the Cowboys’ executive VP of personnel, told USA TODAY Sports. “You know we’ve had them before in Dez (Bryant), Michael (Irvin), T.O. (Terrell Owens).”

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