Los Angeles Rams: 3 takeaways from 33-13 win over Oakland Raiders in Week 1

2. Deep ball has all sorts of potential for 2018

First off, the decision by the Rams to sacrifice a first-round pick to land Brandin Cooks already seems like it’s going to work wonders for this offense in the future when looking at how quickly he made an impact on offense. Not only did Cooks finish the game with five catches for 87 yards, but there were numerous occasions in which he was able to take advantage of his blazing speed to draw pass interference penalties to put Los Angeles in better field position.

Losing Sammy Watkins to free agency seemed like a tough pill to swallow at first for the Rams, but there’s no question that Cooks seems like the much better option, and is going to be a key factor in the success of this offense. Jared Goff was already fortunate enough to have two other big playmakers in Robert Woods and Cooper Kupp, but the presence of Cooks takes this receiving corps to a whole new level.

Even though Goff failed to connect on a deep ball other than 30 yards by Cooks during Monday’s game, there were numerous times in which the Rams quarterback came up just short of making a big play happen, whether it was Cooks or Woods. Moving forward, expect Goff to connect on more of those deep passes with his receivers to give this offense now that the first game is out of their system.