Browns trade Amari Cooper to Buffalo

       Two days after Kevin Stefanski reiterated the team's stance to continue with DeShaun Watson, the Browns then made a move that makes sense but at the same time throws the towel in on a disappointing 2024.

Cleveland traded Amari Cooper and the Detroit Lions' sixth-round pick in 2025 to the Buffalo Bills for a 2025 third-rounder and a seventh-rounder in 2026.

Cooper leads the Browns in receptions (24), receiving yards (250), and touchdowns (2), where he is tied with Rodney McLeod but Cooper has dropped several passes this season, his chemistry with DeShaun Watson has been questionable, and his effort hasn't been as expected as Cooper appeared to be bothered by his name being mentioned in a potential trade in the offseason with the San Francisco 49ers for Brandon Aiyuk

The Browns reworked Cooper's contract in the offseason to make him cheaper under their cap and if the team decided to move on from him during the year, his contract would be easier for a trading team to absorb under their cap.

The Browns will carry twenty-five million of dead cap space for the 2025 season due to trading Cooper but felt the third-round pick was worth the dead cap hit.

If the Browns were 3-3, I'd wonder about the trade but at 1-5 for a player that isn't playing well for a team that would need a miracle to move into the playoff race, I'm ok with it.

The Raiders got a 3rd, that would become a 2nd if conditions were met for Davante Adams, so getting a third for Cooper is good value.

The problem is this- for the uneven play the Browns received from Cooper this season, he was still the team's biggest threat and most consistent pass catcher.

This moves Jerry Jeudy to the number one receiver spot, a role that he didn't flourish in for Denver, and someone who has played well in only one game this season and Cedric Tillman would move into the starting lineup.

Tillman is the player who dropped a pass thrown right to him that ended the Browns hopes of a late comeback against the Giants in the first of four consecutive defeats.

Elijah Moore has been invisible and rookie Jamari Thrash hasn't been active all season and they will be in the third and fourth roles.

This wasn't a good group with Amari Cooper, it's downright dreadful without him.

Another question is just what the Browns are thinking for the season.

If they are committed to winning and they say DeShaun Watson gives them the best chance to win, why would you move his most dependable (for what that's worth) skill player?

If you are committed to a rebuild, I understand the trade but if you aren't, it doesn't make sense unless you were convinced that a third-rounder was the ceiling for Cooper's trade value and were afraid that Buffalo would acquire someone else in the interim, which would reduce a potential return.

While I am usually in favor of non-contenders building their draft arsenal by moving players before the deadline, this time my thoughts are these.

1) Who or any of the Browns brain trust (and I use that very loosely) will be using these extra picks and could this be an attempt to sell Jimmy Haslam on giving any or all another chance to rebuild.

2) Do you really trust Andrew Berry/Paul DePodesta to draft well with these picks?

Considering the picks sent to Houston, this draft is extremely important to the Browns to bulk up the roster, and considering that Berry has drafted one offensive starter in his four drafts (the mediocre tackle Jedrick Wills) and only one impact player period (Jeremiah Owosu-Koahmoah in the second round in 2022), do you trust Berry and DePodesta to make these selections?

Berry has been fairly shrewd in his trades (not counting the awful deal for Watson), including the one that landed Amari Cooper to start with, but his drafting has ranged from average at best to awful, especially with his wide receiver and offensive line picks, do you trust him?

My answer for now is no.

Cooper hangs loss on Houston

   Amari Cooper set an all-time Browns record for receiving yardage at 265 yards on eleven catches, two of those for touchdowns as the Cleveland Browns defeated the Houston Texans 36-22 in Houston.

Joe Flacco threw for 368 yards and three touchdowns for Cleveland in the win as the Browns improved to 10-5 on the season.

Cleveland did not clinch a playoff position with the win but their playoff chances are ninety-six percent after the victory.

The Browns will host their final regular season home game on Thursday night against the Jets, with a  win clinching a playoff spot.

Brownie Bits

1) The record-setting game by Amari Cooper broke the record previously held by Josh Gordon and the record-breaking catch came late in the game when the Browns discovered Cooper was only ten yards off the pace.

2) Amari Cooper entered himself into the record books in two other positions, one of which is a surprise.

Cooper became the first Browns receiver in history to record consecutive 1,000-yard seasons.

That's a surprise considering some of the receivers in Browns history, a few of which are in Canton.

3) Cooper also joined Terrell Owens as the only receiver to post one thousand-yard receiving seasons with three teams.
Cooper with the Raiders, Cowboys, and now the Browns while Owens made his mark with the 49ers, Cowboys, and Bills.

4) Joe Flacco's day was excellent and while he threw two interceptions, one was excusable as the Browns were forced to go for it on a play near the end of the first half as an injury to Dustin Hopkins took a field goal attempt off the table.

5) I really liked the play call by Kevin Stefanski on the first drive that targeted Amari Cooper deep for a fifty-three-yard gain to the Houston six-yard line and set up the Browns first score.

Stefanski is at his best when he attacks but isn't overly clever in his playcalling. Starting the game aggressively downfield has lower risks than the gimmicky short-yardage plays he often used with DeShaun Watson.

6) Dustin Hopkins pulled a hamstring chasing Houston's Dameon Pierce on Pierce's kick return score.

This forced the Browns to eschew any field goal attempts and to try for two-point conversions after touchdowns, which the Browns were successful on two of three chances.

7) I'm still determining the status of Dustin Hopkins but with a short week to prepare for the Jets, I would be extremely surprised if Hopkins kicks on Thursday night.

The question then becomes- who will be the kicker for the Browns on such short notice and how much experience will he have?

Former Browns Cade York and Zane Gonzalez are available and the name often mentioned in the past has been veteran Robbie Gould, although Gould may not be in shape after not kicking all season.

I wonder if this could be a damaging blow to the Browns, depending on how long Hopkins could be out of the lineup when you consider how excellent he has kicked this season.

8) I worried about the Browns patchwork offensive line against a solid Houston pass rush but Cleveland caught a break with Will Anderson unable to play and Jonathan Greenard, the leader in sacks for Houston, left the game early with an injury.

The Browns line didn't allow a sack of the less-than-agile Joe Flacco, so they played well, even if they caught a break in personnel not being available for Houston.

9) The Browns defense gave up two late touchdowns with the game well in hand but had kept Houston off the board before that and despite it being Case Keenum rather than C.J. Stroud in another lucky pull for the Browns, the defense played well, sacking Keenum and Davis Mills three times.

10) Za'Darius Smith had two of those sacks and had a third overturned due to a Cleveland penalty.

I wouldn't say Smith has disappointed in his first season with Cleveland but he hasn't quite been the force that the Browns expected opposite Myles Garrett with five and a half sacks this season.

11) Cleveland may have had a sizable lead at halftime but the finisher was the eighteen-play, ninety-four-yard drive in the third quarter.

Possessions that end in touchdowns on long, punishing drives can grind down defenses and help your defense not only in rest but in how you can play on the field as the opponent is limited in just what they can do with a deficit and time winding away.

12) I mentioned the ninety-six percent chance of a playoff spot for the Browns.

A win against the Jets would clinch but here is the scenario that would keep the Browns on the outside.

Lose to the Jets and Bengals. Buffalo wins at least one of their two games, and two of these teams win both their games, Jacksonville, Indianapolis, Houston (one of the three will win the AFC South), Pittsburgh or Cincinnati- And even then it would come down to tiebreakers.

Cleveland could make things a lot easier by polishing off the Jets on Thursday but even if they don't, the Browns still seem in solid shape.

Browns trade for Amari Cooper with Dallas

    The Cleveland Browns needed two top receivers to add to a position group that badly lacked production and especially a deep threat that would scare secondaries, assuming Baker Mayfield could give such a player a chance to haul in an often wayward spiral.

After the best free agents were either franchise tagged or re-signed by their teams, the market looked a bit weak other than Allen Robinson and the possible availability of Amari Cooper, should the Cowboys scrap his twenty million dollars from their cap for 2022.

The problem with Cooper as a free agent for the Browns was that a top receiver is unlikely to select the Browns with the Kevin Stefanski tight end heavy offense, the problems that Odell Beckham had with the team, and of course putting your career in the hands of Baker Mayfield, all add up to either not addressing your need or overpaying to bring them to Cleveland.

So, Andrew Berry decided to take the choice out of Amari Cooper's hands and swapped a 2022 fifth-rounder and the right to flip sixth-rounders to Dallas to bolster the pass-catching corps.

Amari Cooper caught sixty-eight passes for 865 yards and seven touchdowns last season in fifteen games for the Cowboys and was a player that Dallas wasn't looking to move for performance reasons but thought that CeeDee Lamb was ready to into the number one receiver position and twenty million a season is a high-end salary for your second receiver.

In other words, Cooper at his cost was a luxury item, not a necessity.

At twenty-eight by the time the season starts, Cooper is far from washed up and since being selected by the then-Oakland Raiders fourth overall in 2015, Cooper has missed only four games in his career (two of those for Dallas last season) and had he not missed those games, Cooper was likely to click up his fourth straight 1,000 receiving yard season.

Cooper may not be an elite deep threat but he is certainly a level under the top in the games and I would go as far to say that Cooper would be the best deep receiver that Cleveland has seen since those halcyon days of a very young Josh Gordon.

And what many don't see is the route running abilities that Amari Cooper possesses.

Cooper isn't a one dimensional, straight-line runner that runs by his man for one or two big plays a game, he's a player that a quarterback can get the ball to in almost every area of the field and one that teams will have to put their best cornerback on throughout the game.

There are a few questions in this trade to be answered.

Kevin Stefanski's offense has never thrilled outside receivers as Stefon Diggs was stifled in Minnesota, Odell Beckham had his issues in Cleveland, and Jarvis Landry's better seasons in Cleveland were Pre-Stefanski.

Could Cooper be the latest receiver to chafe under Kevin Stefanski?

Odell Beckham had major issues meshing with Baker Mayfield and Beckham's style isn't radically different than that of Cooper, I think that it is far from an assumption to count on Mayfield and Cooper finding that intangible known as "chemistry".

The other issue with Cooper?

Cooper missed his games last season after testing positive for Covid-19 and reportedly still is unvaccinated.

Covid isn't going away with future variants and strains still to come- Is it possible that Cooper couldn't be available for a must-win game?

Cooper is going to receive a lot of money under his contract that he signed with Dallas as Cooper is under contract for twenty million a season for each of the next three seasons.

I would say that Cooper may not be in Cleveland for all three of those seasons due to cap constraints (although it's always possible that the contract could be reworked) but Cooper could be around for two and should Cooper perform well, the Brown could possibly keep him for the contract term.

Jarvis Landry asked for permission from the Browns to seek a trade and permission was given as Landry would like to find a team that would be willing to pay his fifteen million contract for 2022.

The Browns have offered to restructure his contract to keep Landry and while he would be a nice complement to Cooper, I would say, I'd think it's unlikely to happen.

I'd still like to see the Browns use the 13th pick on another wide receiver (especially if Ohio State's Garrett Wilson is still available) or at least consider trying to trade back into the first round later (the Browns other glaring need is at defensive end or defensive tackle) for a player such as Ohio State's Chris Olave or Arkansas's Treylon Burks, who posted mediocre combine numbers and is reported to be tumbling down draft boards.

In the event that the Browns could manage to keep Jarvis Landry, the Browns still should consider a day two receiver as I don't see the Browns being to get by with Donovan Peoples-Jones or one-dimensional Anthony Schwartz.

Should the Browns somehow retain Landry, they could avoid a first or second-round receiver but I'd still recommend it in a season that the team has stated that they are going to ride with Baker Mayfield to give him as many weapons as possible to help him succeed (or take away excuses if he fails).

There is no downside to this trade other than a high salary if Cooper doesn't produce at an elite level.

Otherwise, the price is a fifth-rounder in a draft that the Browns possess two third-rounders and two fourth-rounders, and a swap of sixth-rounders.

You could also consider Jarvis Landry as part of the trade, should you decide to do as Landry's salary had to be reallocated (reworked or released) in order to clear the path for Cooper but even assuming that Landry is included in the deal, I still think that the deal was a good one.

Amari Cooper is younger, more versatile, and a more dynamic receiver than Jarvis Landry and I'd say that Andrew Berry did very well- even better if there is a chance of retaining Landry as the veteran possession receiver that Baker Mayfield may still need in the lineup.