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.”

Consider the implications of that.

Cousins has shared a huddle with Jefferson. He understands what it looks like when a gifted pass catcher starts revealing abilities that even the people working alongside him every day did not fully appreciate.

And here he is, one game into his regular-season partnership with Bowers, suggesting there is more to discover.

For the Raiders, that is a tantalizing thought.

For defensive coordinators, considerably less so.

Bowers is rapidly pushing his way beyond conversations confined to tight ends. The position explains where he lines up some of the time. It does increasingly little to explain the scope of the threat.

He can be the dependable completion that keeps a possession moving and the explosive play that changes its direction. He can command the coverage’s attention and still end up with the football.

The hands. The movement. The feel for finding space. The ability to turn an opportunity into something bigger.

Call him a natural. Call him a freak of nature.

At some point, the labels become less useful than the defensive game plan devoted to containing him.

Then he comes back from having his knee worked on and does this.

“Brock has always been a guy that we count on, but to come off of an injury and play the way that he did; it’s very, very impressive. We needed it. We are not surprised by that with Brock,” Raiders coach Klint Kubiak said.

Impressive. Needed. Somehow unsurprising.

There is the Bowers experience in three thoughts.

Bowers himself offered a considerably less dramatic accounting of the knee issue.

“I thought it was kind of nothing I thought it would go away at the start of the season. But no, just had to get it done before the long stretch of the season. Glad to be back.”

Just had to get it done.

As if he had dropped off his truck for maintenance.

The casual explanation should not obscure the work involved. Tucker pointed to his teammate’s resilience and work ethic. Being exceptionally gifted does not handle the rehabilitation for you.

Bowers put himself in position to return. Then his talent took over.

None of this was particularly revelatory to Nakobe Dean, who first encountered Bowers as a freshman arriving at Georgia from Napa and needed little time to recognize what the Bulldogs had.

When the subject of how much people talk about Bowers came up Sunday, Dean supplied the necessary clarification.

“And rightfully so.”

His broader explanation was even more economical.

“Brock is Brock.”

That covers plenty.

What Bowers wanted to discuss, meanwhile, was the group he had rejoined.

“The locker room’s unbelievable. It’s a very connected group of guys. I think that’s why we all mesh together and trust each other and play so hard for one another. I’m just really, really happy to be a part of it.”

The Raiders are building something that increasingly demands attention.

Bowers gives them a weapon capable of commanding it all by himself.

He is becoming one of one at his position and one of the most feared players anywhere on the field. Sunday offered another reminder of why, under circumstances that should have made it much harder.

Ten catches. One hundred sixteen yards. A touchdown.

After getting his knee cleaned up.

Absurd?

Absolutely.

Surprising?

Brock is Brock.