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Alaina Getzenberg, ESPN
ORCHARD PARK, NY — Buffalo Expenses general manager Brandon Beane signed wide receiver Amari Cooper almost 10 years ago.
In 2015, when Beane was the general labor supervisor in Carolina, he and then-Panthers schoolteacher Ricky Proehl conducted a pre-draft consultation to scout Cooper in Alabama. The two took him to dinner and trained him later.
Cooper’s reserved nature ended with Beane and Proehl giving up the dinner thinking, “Guy, he doesn’t like us,” but that wasn’t the case. Later, Cooper met them bright and early, pointing them to the field and greeting them with duct tape.
“He beat us there and made the movie go up,” Beane recalled of this time. “We walked into one of their meeting rooms, you gave this guy the clicker and he was at peace. He just talked to us like a coach: ‘This is what he was doing here. This is what he has. This is what he has. It has. That’s why I did this. And we sat there for over an hour, maybe 1:15… and we just watched. [him] talk about ball.”
The Panthers had the 25th overall pick in that year’s draft, so settling on Cooper, whom the then-Oakland Raiders chose fourth overall, was not possible. Now in 2024, Beane decided to trade a 2025 third-round pick and a 2026 seventh-round pick to the Cleveland Browns in exchange for Cooper and a 2025 sixth-round pick.
Adding the five-time Pro Bowl receiver used to be “really just an opportunity to add a guy who adds an experienced and proven skill set to the group,” as Beane described it, worth about $806,667 after the Browns will transform. All but the veteran’s minimum of his $20 million offseason salary, an extraordinary number and the best fit for Expenses’ limited salary cap range: $2.9 million before industry, according to the NFLPA report.
The Expenses will face the Tennessee Titans on Sunday (1 p.m. ET, CBS) and Cooper is expected to be in action in a snap.
“We’ll see, I think so, but I want to see and visit the coaches again,” spending master Sean McDermott mentioned at the time. If there will be some obstacles to adding the 10-year veteran to the offense six games into the season, Cooper will add an opportunity for quarterback Josh Allen on the field and an unused veteran presence to a receiver room he has found. good luck this season. .
“Knowing what kind of caliber a player is excites me,” Allen said. “Another guy in this locker room who, from what I’ve seen so far and what I’ve been told about him, aims to win and is going to do everything he can to help this team win football games. And you have a group of men in this locker room, who want the same thing and want to work to achieve the same goal. “It’s a pretty powerful team.”
The team’s follow-up quarterback, Mike White, used to be on the Dallas Cowboys when Cooper was traded from the Raiders to the Cowboys in October 2018. White recalled how “incredible” Cooper is as a teammate and the way in that he is the “prototypical professional.”
But what do you remember most? “How much our season in Dallas changed once we acquired him,” White said.
When the Cowboys traded for Cooper, the team was 3-4. Now losing Cooper’s first game on the team, Dallas won the last five and seven of the last eight to end the season.
“Now, I’m not trying to predict that for us,” White said, “but it shows you what he can bring, so obviously, we all know what he’s capable of, but it’s just, I think it’s the locker room stuff and the stability that he can bring which I think can help a lot of the guys.”
In the outfield, Cooper, 30, will give life to a Costes offense that, after scoring more than 30 points in each of the first three games of the season, has scored 23 or fewer in the third month. for Allen and the receiving game are downfield passes.
Allen is completing 29% of his passes more than 20 yards downfield, which ranks 23rd in the NFL entering Era 7 — his worst share of glory on such throws in six games since 2019.
Cooper will have to immediately support that factor.
“First, just his approach to the game. How he goes about his business and … his work ethic,” Expenses wide receivers teacher Adam Henry, who also coached Cooper in Dallas in 2020 and 2021, said of what stood out about Cooper. . “Then secondly, just his change of direction, just being able to change direction and get into gear…Once he gets into a zone…he allows the game to come to him, so he has a systematic strategy “. approach him. So you don’t force it.
“He just thinks ‘I’m doing what I’m supposed to do in the right parks,’ and that’s going to determine everything, and that’s very rare for receivers.”
Cooper has 15 receiving touchdowns on pass routes or deep fades since the start of 2017, when route rankings began tracking, ESPN Analytics/NFL Next Gen Stats, third-most in the NFL in that span behind Tyreek Hill and Mike Evans. Over the last five seasons, Cooper has 78 receptions (fourth), 2,005 yards (sixth) and 20 touchdowns (sixth) on vertical routes.
Even though Cooper had a down year in Cleveland as part of a struggling Browns offense, his ability to create separation is one of his strengths. According to NGS, Bills wide receivers have been considered open on 42% of targets (14th) this season. Cooper can create that space, especially on third down, where Allen has often been forced to scramble and find an open receiver. Allen’s completion percentage is just 52.1 on third down (averaging 62.8 this season).
“[Cooper’s] He’s clearly a fat, handsome guy, perfect with the ball in his hand after the catch, but I would say the main factor is the success in the form of hitting and the increasing break,” White said. “What’s the problem? its entirety in this age and life, particularly in 0.33 discomfort, although you know that, for most of the step you are taking to get type protection or blitz 0, you are depending on it to win, and I endure Remembering in Dallas most of times, he got in shape.
Getting Cooper up to speed will be a challenge. But Henry, who is working with him to get the offense back on track, said he “1000%” believes he’s someone who can get the offense back on track quickly, while also spending time with Allen learning the “verbal and non-verbal mannerisms.” On the Bills side, the quarterbacks have seen cuts from Cleveland to pick up Cooper’s play.
“It’s been going well,” Cooper told ESPN on Friday. “I’m a quick learner, so it hasn’t really been that hard, but clearly I haven’t learned the whole offense yet. Football isn’t that easy, there’s definitely a variety of plays and I’ll have to stick around.” “I’m hanging around getting the whole thing told to me and really putting it in my memory, but I feel like so far this year, I’ve picked it up pretty well.”
For the rest of the offense, the addition of Cooper is considered an improvement for the group.
“I’m cruel, kind of like including someone else with cash for your family, rooting for you to pay the full amount, rooting for the full amount to get out,” rookie wide receiver Keon Coleman said. “It helps everyone else be sharp and just brings more excitement to the offense.”
