The Raiders have been a franchise mired in trouble essentially since they walked off of the field in Super Bowl XXXVII. Their first-round picks on both sides of the ball are routinely mocked, and for good reason -- whiffs on Darren McFadden, Darrius Heyward-Bey, and Rolando McClain have helped keep Oakland mired in irrelevancy for more than a decade.

It's no wonder, then, that fantasy owners have had trouble trusting that Oakland has made not just a relevant fantasy selection but selected a good player at all.

The fact is, results matter, and since 2004 the Raiders have not had a first-round difference maker on the offensive end.

Fortunes in Oakland might be changing -- Khalil Mack, Oakland's first-rounder in 2014 looks legit, and it appears Oakland through four games might have found an offensive talent worthy of his draft position in Amari Cooper.

Cooper is currently on pace to be the first Raiders receiver with over 1,000 yards in a season since Michael Crabtree is also on pace to go barely over 1,000 as well).

The question is: should fantasy owners care about Cooper, and how much?

The Good

Essentially, fantasy football can be boiled down to one simple formula: (Talent) x (Opportunity)=Value.

In other words, a player's value is tied not just to his talent, but it is tied to how many times he touches the ball. According to SportingCharts.com, Cooper has appeared in 234 of the Raiders' 269 offensive snaps -- or 87% of the total offensive snaps the team has taken. That's more than any non-offensive line player on the team, including quarterback Derek Carr, and is 42 snaps more than the next highest-ranked skill position player: Crabtree.

Cooper is not on the field simply as a decoy. The Raiders fully intend to use him. Currently Cooper sits at 40 targets which ties him for 14th in the league, one more than Crabtree. Among highly targeted receivers, Cooper has fared well per our metrics.

Our signature metric, Net Expected Points (NEP) can measure how much a player adds or detracts from his team's expectations to score. You can read more in our Odell Beckham-like surge from Cooper, but somewhere between a mid to low WR2 to a high-end WR3/FLEX is well within Cooper's capabilities, particularly with the amount of opportunity he is getting.

Our algorithms project Cooper to perform as the WR19 for the rest of the season.