He was good in college...but as you pointed out in the RB thread, not everyone in college is "on scholarship". When Cooper was traded to the Cowboys he had the highest percent of dropped passes in the league out of all WRs from 2015-2018 (
https://twitter.com/CBSSportsHQ/stat...26098511380480) and there were multiple people that claimed to know about the NFL (former players, front office sources, etc) that were questioning whether Cooper was a "true #1 WR" since most of his Raiders production had been with Crabtree and then he had a down year prior to being traded. His work ethic, conditioning, mental approach, and technique were all questioned. And many of the same (former players, front office sources, etc) said that Cooper would be fine once he got out of Oakland.
While I am not claiming that DJ or Cooper are similar players...I am claiming that Cooper dropped a number of passes and still occasionally drops a few big ones (
https://www.al.com/sports/2019/10/co...yard-game.html) to this day. But his overall impact in the offense means very few people are still worrying about Cooper and drops.
Say DJ is target over 100 times next year. Has single digit drops, catches a handful of touchdowns, and continues to convert on third downs...does the narrative change on him?
This article can be viewed as playing funny math games
https://steelersdepot.com/2020/12/dr...at-look/...but it says to me that if DJ drops like 4 less passes last season he has stats similar to Stefon Diggs. In his second NFL season...