Brock Bowers emphatic statement has Raiders QB likening him to Justin Jefferson

NEW ORLEANS — Brock Bowers had his knee cleaned up, missed two games, then walked back into the NFL on Sunday and caught 10 passes for 116 yards and a touchdown.Which is an absurd sentence to write.It becomes slightly less absurd when you get to the part about who did it.That would be Bowers, whose greatest trick might eventually be making the extraordinary so routine that everyone forgets how unreasonable it is to expect any of this.Surgery.A brief absence.

Then right back to being a problem that an entire NFL defense cannot solve.Tre Tucker was still trying to process it afterward.“You sit out two weeks to get your knee all cleaned up, and then to come out here and have a game like that?”Yes.Apparently.The Raiders beat the Saints 35-27 on Sunday to improve to 3-0, and there was plenty to unpack about the resolve and timely playmaking that carried them through another test.But somewhere in the middle of all that, their best offensive player returned from a knee procedure and immediately reminded everyone that the team winning without him had been operating with a substantial piece of its identity missing.The Raiders had found ways to compensate.Now they get to explore everything his presence makes possible.Even the quarterback throwing him the ball is still discovering how much that might be.Kirk Cousins has been here before.

In Minnesota, playing alongside Justin Jefferson taught him that some talents reveal themselves in layers.What you see in practice is only the beginning.

Games reveal another level, and, with it, a growing understanding of what you can ask of someone that gifted.He is beginning that same process with Bowers.“I had this with Justin, where early on you don’t realize how good he was as a player,” said Cousins.“And then you play with him longer, and you start to realize, ‘Oh, practice didn’t really show just how good he is,’ and so I think games with Brock will be important for us to continue to build that rapport.”Consid...