Nick Saban reacts to Amari Cooper retirement: 'I'm sure he's got a good reason'

No one will accuse Amari Cooper of being a showman or particularly self-centered like other superstar receivers. Which is why his humble decision to retire on the opening day of the NFL’s 2025 season caught so many people by surprise, including his former collegiate head coach, Nick Saban.

During his weekly Friday appearance on The Pat McAfee Show, the former Alabama coach expressed shock with Cooper’s retirement decision Thursday afternoon, just hours before the league’s 2025 opener between the Dallas Cowboys and defending Super Bowl champion Philadelphia Eagles.

“That shocked me,” Saban said Friday afternoon on ESPN. “He caught over 100 balls for us, I mean, he was fantastic when he played for us, and a great competitor. A very quiet guy, maybe a little misunderstood sometimes because he was so quiet, but a good person and a great competitor. He’s had a good career. I hate to see people like that not be able to continue their career for whatever reason, but I’m sure he’s got a good reason to hang it up.”

The 31-year-old Cooper elected to hang up his cleats after a decade in the NFL rather than attempt another comeback in Las Vegas, according to NFL.com’s Ian Rapoport. Cooper signed a one-year, $3.5 million deal with the Raiders — the franchise that originally drafted him with the No. 4 overall pick in the 2015 NFL Draft out of Alabama — in late August to play what would be his 11th season in the NFL. Alas, the Crimson Tide legend is now calling it a career after 10 years in the league.

Cooper caps his NFL career as a five-time Pro Bowl selection with 711 career receptions, 10,033 receiving yards and 64 receiving touchdowns in 154 games. That came across 10 seasons with the Raiders, Cowboys, Cleveland Browns and briefly the Buffalo Bills for the final half of the 2024 season.

Across three seasons at Alabama between 2012-14, Cooper helped rewrite the program record book for receivers, including setting numerous single-season and career records with the Crimson Tide. As a junior in 2014, Cooper set single-season receiving records with 124 receptions for 1,727 yards and 16 touchdowns, becoming the school’s all-time leader in career receptions (228), receiving yards (3,463) and receiving touchdowns (31).

Cooper’s best NFL season came in 2023 when he tallied 1,250 receiving yards on 72 receptions and five scores in his second-to-last year with the Browns. The year before, Cooper had a career-best nine receiving touchdowns while starting all 17 games in a season for the first time in a career repeatedly derailed by injuries. He also posted a career-high 92 receptions in 2020 with the Cowboys, the franchise with which he found the most production.