Bills HC Sean McDermott talks about impact Amari Cooper will have on WR corps

Buffalo Bills head coach Sean McDermott likened acclimating Amari Cooper to the team's receiving corps to putting together a puzzle.

Kyle Silagyi | Oct 16, 2024

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It took six games for the Buffalo Bills to realize that their ‘everyone eats’ offense needed to invite additional guests over for dinner.

The offensive philosophy was birthed from an offseason restructuring of the receiving corps that saw the departures of Stefon Diggs and Gabriel Davis; rather than acquire a marquee name through which to funnel the bulk of the team’s aerial production, the Bills instead opted to construct a mishmash receiving corps of talented, but unproven weapons to which quarterback Josh Allen could evenly disperse the ball.

And though the ideology showed initial promise, it quickly became apparent that Buffalo was in desperate need of help at wide receiver after its wideouts combined for just four catches on 18 targets in an ugly Week 5 loss to the Houston Texans. The position group’s production slightly improved in Week 6, combining for nine receptions in a win over the New York Jets, but the Bills’ brass still felt reinforcements were necessary.

Said support came in the form of Amari Cooper, a seven-time 1,000-yard receiver whom the team acquired from the Cleveland Browns on Tuesday afternoon. The individual impact the five-time Pro Bowler will have on Buffalo’s offense is obvious; he immediately slots in as the top option on the depth chart, an alpha target whom Allen can trust in big moments. His drops are a concern (he leads the NFL with nine thus far this season), but his demonstrated ability to be a 100-plus target receiver in a top offense should again give Bills fans confidence in the team’s passing attack.

It’s the ramifications that Cooper’s acquisition will have on Buffalo’s receiving corps that are perhaps as exciting as his individual presence, as slotting the 30-year-old on top of the depth chart will allow the Bills’ already-rostered pass-catchers to rest into less burdensome roles. A player like the ever-reliable Khalil Shakir is no longer the only wide receiver whom Allen can trust in pivotal moments. Rookie Keon Coleman no longer has to be proverbially baptized by fire by being the team’s primary option on the outside. Niche players like Mack Hollins and Curtis Samuel can again subside into more suitable roles thanks to the team now boasting a genuine top option.

Head coach Sean McDermott spoke about the impact that Cooper’s addition will have on the larger receiving corps on Tuesday, stating that while it’s true that the team’s pre-existing wideouts will now be placed into more suitable roles and auspicious situations, this can’t truly occur until the former fourth-overall pick is fully acclimated to the organization.

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“I think, again, it’s more, it is that [putting others in more suitable roles], to an extent, but that only happens if the pieces of the puzzle fit in appropriately, does that make sense?” McDermott said. “Everyone in that room, before Amari was here, had a slightly different skill set, so now it’s determining truly what Amari’s skill set is and how it’s going to fit into the room and how our system can also use Amari’s strengths to make our system better.

“I’ve talked about that before, where it’s important that you identify the strengths of the player, and then you tailor the system to his strengths so that your system becomes even better. That’s some of the cadence that I was referring to, the rhythm of making sure that he’s onboarded the right way and we get rolling with the rhythm that we had coming out of the game from the other night. That’s part of the onboarding process.”

That acclimation process will start this week as Cooper arrives at One Bills Drive; how significant—if any—of an offensive role he’ll have in the team’s Week 7 matchup with the Tennessee Titans remains to be seen.

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