All WR's have games where they disappear. If Cooper didn't he would be a 1600+ yard reciever. The truth is defenses game plan for star players and minor injuries occur that leads to some games where he doesn't go off for 150+ yards. People have high expectations for an elite reciever but it happens to all of them. It's why you need 3 guys so that when the defense focuses on one another guy can go off.
If you put Gallup as our number 1 reciever and surround him with trash you'd probably be disappointed with his consistency too. But when you have 3 elite guys you'd have to be dumb as shit to try to force the ball to 1 of them.
The only reason it stood out last year was because his stats happened to line up with our home and away schedule.
Yeah, of course, but I think Cooper's inconsistency went a little beyond standard "Not every star WR can catch 100 yards a game." He had his share of 1 and 2 catch outings in Oakland. Again, I'm not just making this up, this was the knock on Cooper when acquired... he had a tendency to lose focus, not show up at times, and there were questions about his dedication.
I'd say much of that seems overblown, but also, the last staff straight up pulled him from the game against Philadelphia for lack of effort when they basically had to know their own jobs were on the line. Blame them all you want, but not putting the players you feel give you the best chance to win onto the field on fourth-and-your-job would be beyond logic, so far that basically I would not be able to believe they'd be that level of incompetent if they'd reached the NFL at any level. There was some sort of problem with the effort or execution that went beyond predictable playcalling (which Cooper managed to relatively thrive under, otherwise, to the tune of 79 catches, nearly 1200 yards and 8 TDs).
The home-away split discrepancy is odd, but again, some of it MIGHT be on the player. I assume most players will have slightly worse stats on the road.... home games favor the home team, there's a reason for that. The away games tend to be slightly harder.
Secondly, the final three road games for us were in awful conditions in New England and then in cold-weather locales in Chicago and Philadelphia. Culminating in a road loss that cost the staff their jobs where the player was pulled off the field for the game deciding play. There's no chance that a player with a history of giving less than 100% might have given less than 100% in the cold in adversarial conditions?
If your only connection of the dots is "the staff misused him on the road," then you aren't thinking critically enough.