Maybe it's time for Browns to consider trading Amari Cooper and plan for the future

At 1-4 and with an offense that has yet to reach 20 points or 300 yards in a game, the Cleveland Browns are searching for answers and quickly being faced with difficult questions about their future. This was supposed to be an all-inclusive season, not a total disaster.

An offense that lacks rhythm or consistency certainly wouldn’t improve by trading wide receiver Amari Cooper. But is it time for the Browns to look to the future and start making long-term decisions? After the offense failed to convert a single third down with quarterback Deshaun Watson in Sunday’s game and again struggled with alignment and substitution issues, would it be better to call this latest offensive remake a disaster and start moving on?

A week ago, that thought would have been difficult for the team’s decision makers to swallow. However, after the most embarrassing offensive performance yet against Washington, Cleveland has to at least discuss trading Cooper as part of accepting the reality of the situation.

For two and a half years, the people running the team had to operate under the assumption that the Watson experiment would work and that big spending on older players and pushing salary cap money into future years would help the Browns maximize their potential. . Now that they’ve seen – again – that it’s not working with Watson, it’s time to at least start with the awkward conversations about the future.

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Cooper is 30 years old and is only under contract through the rest of this season, although the Browns added void years to his contract in July when they guaranteed Cooper’s salary through 2024 and added incentives to the deal. If Cooper finishes the year in Cleveland, the Browns could potentially spread his remaining cap space over multiple seasons. If he is traded, the Browns would receive $22 million in dead money against their 2025 cap hit.

The guarantees paid out before this season make Cooper an attractive trade target for teams with legitimate Super Bowl aspirations. An acquiring team would only assume his remaining base salary for 2024, which is less than $1 million. According to the NFL’s Public Salary Cap Report, the Buffalo Bills began the week with less than $2 million in available cap space and the Kansas City Chiefs began with less than $5 million, so Cooper’s affordability could end up helping your commercial market.

For the Browns, though, the complications here don’t just involve the possibility of trading their No. 1 receiver with few proven options behind him. Knowing that $22 million in dead money would be at the ceiling for next year would be a step towards planning for an increasingly uncomfortable and uncertain future.

Considering that the acquisition of Cooper in March 2022 for a late pick trade is the best that commercial general manager Andrew Berry has done and that Cooper will count against the cap for the foreseeable future, no one involved has closed the door on him remaining a Brown – even though the reworked contract didn’t add any years to the deal.

So now — right now and over the next four weeks — the Browns have to start evaluating what they think their present and future might hold. Is there an internal illusion that this season can be saved? Do they want Cooper beyond this year? If so, can they believe Cooper wants them?

There’s also the complication of Cooper not having his best season. No one in the passing game is, but he’s never looked comfortable in this offense. Cooper has been linked to trade rumors involving the San Francisco 49ers amid the Browns’ alleged pursuit of wide receiver Brandon Aiyuk in August. Although he never addressed the matter directly, Cooper posted an Instagram Story shortly after the Browns were publicly linked to Aiyuk that said, “I wouldn’t mind at all.”

An absurd 45% of passes aimed at Amari Cooper have been classified as “off target” this season.

We haven’t seen an off-target rate this high for a player with 40+ targets since at least before 2011.

-Mike Clay (@MikeClayNFL) October 8, 2024

Cooper had big drops — the most crucial of the season in Las Vegas led to an interception — in three of the first four weeks of the season. He scored both of the Browns’ touchdowns in Week 3 and has looked like the No. 1 receiver since arriving in Cleveland and for most of his 10-year career.

According to Pro Football Focus (PFF), Cooper had 18 drops as a rookie with the Raiders. Since then, he has averaged five per season, but already has five in 2024. His highest number with the Browns was six in 2022, but his quit rate has been less than 8 percent in five of the last six years.

Generally, Cooper has been reliable. He has been particular about strength and balance during and after the catching process. He is also an excellent route runner and can still make plays in the vertical passing game. His average depth of target over three seasons with the Browns is about 13.5 yards, per PFF, and last December he set a franchise record with a 265-yard receiving day in a win at Houston.

Cooper was at his best last December with Joe Flacco at quarterback. This current version with Watson at center has been like Watson’s passes: everywhere. And while the vibe and outlook might have been different if Cooper had caught a perfectly placed pass for about 30 yards in Las Vegas instead of turning it into a drop and interception, that didn’t happen. The Browns look much closer to being sunk than on the verge of an upset.

Cooper is still busy. He commanded a 65.3 percent share of the Browns’ fly yards in the messy loss at Washington, the second-highest of any receiver in Week 5, according to the NFL’s Next Gen Stats. The plays are still scripted for him and Watson is still looking for him. Cooper’s two big plays against the New York Giants came on a day when he scored 12 goals.

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Just like trying to identify the most fixable flaws in the current attack, assessing where it could be in a month – or year – is also difficult. The Browns do not have a starting running back, No. 1 wide receiver or starting left tackle under contract for next year. Frankly, they have a disaster on their hands, with over $170 million in fully guaranteed dollars still committed to Watson.

While the team’s most important and expensive decisions regarding the future will take months to make, the Browns have been in such bad shape that it’s time to at least discuss them. Seeing whether any team can offer a third-round pick for Cooper should be part of furthering these discussions.

Even if the Browns believe trading Cooper is their best move, they could still wait until closer to the Nov. 5 trade deadline in hopes that the number of teams in need of receivers will grow and drive up the price. The fair assumption would be that any team trading for Cooper would be a Super Bowl contender, so Cleveland would be acquiring a late third-round pick in the 85-90 range — or perhaps something similar in a package involving multiple picks or even another player. .

The Chiefs have two third-round picks in 2025, their second since trading cornerback L’Jarius Sneed to Tennessee in March. The Bills have an extra fourth-round pick in 2025 in a trade they made with the Chicago Bears during April’s draft. If the Browns potentially wanted a young receiver back in any Cooper trade, they could reach out to the Green Bay Packers, who currently have six wideouts — all on rookie deals.

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There’s probably no rush, and there’s probably also an internal feeling that the Browns still need to try to let Watson and everyone involved turn things around. Nothing was fun for the 2024 Browns and almost nothing worked.

So whether or not Cooper’s potential trade was a big part of the team restructured his contract in July or just part of the overall business of boosting money with the ever-increasing salary cap, the long-term view of things cannot be what it was just a few months ago. It might be time for the Browns to start planning for the future.

(Photo: Sue Ogrocki/Associated Press)