Former Raiders back up QB Connor Cook signs to Panthers practice squad

It didn’t take too long for another team to take a chance on former Raiders back up quarterback Connor Cook, though he still will have to wait before he manages to get on the active roster of a team. That’s because he was signed to the Carolina Panthers today, but only to their practice squad.

Cook had seemed like he was making progress this off-season and in the first preseason game for Oakland, but the wheels fell off after that with a disastrous final 3 preseason games. It was enough for Raiders coach and QB guru Jon Gruden to decide he’d seen enough and included Connor Cook in the final roster cuts to get down to the 53 man roster for the regular season.

We don’t know if the Raiders had attempted to add Cook to their own practice squad but if not it speaks volumes as to their opinion of him as an NFL QB. Now it will be up to the Carolina Panthers to see what they can do to help develop Cook who entered the league as a 2016 4^th round draft selection of the Raiders.

Connor Cook had a successful college career at Michigan State that had some people thinking he could have been as high as a first round pick but leadership concerns had him fall in the draft. He started one game in his career, the playoff game against the Texans in ‘16 after Derek Carr was lost for the season with a broken leg.

Besides the Panthers, Cook had also visited the New York Jets for a workout but they had decided not to offer him a spot on their team. After that he visited the Panthers who clearly liked enough of what they saw to see what he had to offer on the practice squad. Carolina cut their final draft pick of the 2018 draft DT Kendrick Norton to make space for Cook on their practice squad.