Oakland Raiders: 5 players that need a better game vs. Los Angeles Rams

While second-year quarterback Connor Cook helped himself to some extent in the first preseason game on Saturday, he needs to be a great deal better against the Rams to have any shot at winning that No. 2 quarterbacking job from E.J. Manuel.

Cook may have had a better grasp of running new offensive coordinator Todd Downing’s offense, but that’s because he has had a year of working with Downing in Oakland and Manuel has not. While Cook was able to help get the Raiders into the end zone for the only time on Saturday, he completed just 10 of 21 passes for 82 yards.

That yield him 3.9 yards per attempt and a lousy 58.0 quarterback rating. While Manuel had no help in the ground game whatsoever, he was significantly better through the air than was Cook. Manuel completed 10 of 12 passes for 107 yards, averaging 8.9 yards per attempt and garnering a 103.8 quarterback rating.

Cook may have found some degree of rhythm in the offense, but he has to show us on Saturday that he is an NFL quarterback. He may have started in more career playoff games that Carr and Manuel combined, but he’s easily the third-best quarterback on this roster. Completing close to 60 percent of his passes for over 6.0 yards per attempt would be a great game for the former Michigan State Spartans’ signal caller.